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WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 
and ROBERT GREENE 

THE EVIDENCE 

WILLIAM H. CHAPMAN 

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PREFACE. 

\HE design of this work is to 
give some account of the con- 
spicuous events and of some of 
the personages connected with 
the literary history of England in that 
wonderful Renaissance which took place 
in the Elizabethan age. All that the writer 
has attempted, is a concise narrative of 
some of the facts, grouping them together 
in a compact form, with such reflections 
as seemed to him to he just and appropri- 
ate. To secure this end he lias labored to 
strip from Shakspere's biography the 
manufactured traditions which date from 
a considerable period after Shakspere's 
death. Where all is conjecture let the 
reader do Ins own guessing and strive 
for the abatement of that new Freak 
called Esthetic Criticism with which some 
of our critics and commentators desig- 
nate their own absurdities. 

The writer lias given unusual promi- 
nence to several distinguished personages 
amongst Shakspere's contemporaries, no- 
tably Bobert Greene, William Kemp and 



Ben Jonson. The work is sketchy in 
execution because the materials do not 
exist for more than an outline figure. 

The readers familiar with the old Eng- 
lish dramatic poets do not believe in an 
exclusive authorship, or uniform work- 
manship, of the greatest of the Eliza- 
bethan English works. While they set up 
no claimant for the writings so commonly 
credited to William Shakspere of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, they believe, nevertheless, 
that the Stratfordian canon is open to 
demurrer. 

Conspicuous among modern and recent 
writers on the subject of Bobert Greene, 
who show the courage of their convictions 
by their valiant strokes in defense of that 
poet's reputation, are Professor J. M. 
Brown of New Zealand, Dr. A. B. Gross- 
art, and Professor Storojenko. The cita- 
tions borrowed from their works attest 
the writer's obligation to them, and are 
sufficiently indicated in the text. 

WILLIAM H. CHAPMAN 

Santa Monica, California. 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE AND 
ROBERT GREENE 

THE EVIDENCE 



This book was written primarily for 
private satisfaction, the author having no 
desire for approbation, and to disclose 
merely the true William Shakspere of 
Stratford-on-Avon ; to find him as a man ; 
to feel his personal presence ; to know him 
as he was known by his neighbors as land- 
owner, money lender, captain of amuse- 
ments, actor, play-broker and litigant. 
From dusty records that do not awaken 
a cleific impulse may be read the true 
story of his life, but, before directing the 
readers' attention to the documentary evi- 
dence, which can be entirely depended 
upon in regard to himself, his family, 
neighbors, fellow-actors and associates, 



2 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

we desire to cut out the worthless conjec- 
tures which are contained in most, if not 
all, of the recent works on the subject of 
Shakespeare. Circumstances, however 
slight, may give rise to idle conjectures, 
but their worthlessness may be best dis- 
cerned by setting up against them reason- 
able ones. To repeat apocryphal anec- 
dotes and manufactured traditions that 
are not reasonable inferences from con- 
current events is to dissipate mental en- 
ergy; antiquity per se adds nothing to 
confirmation or probability. In that di- 
gest of biography, so often quoted, George 
Stevens tells his readers in less than fifty 
words all he knew with any degree of cer- 
tainty concerning Shakspere, with the 
exception of his conjectures as to the au- 
thorship of the poems and plays. This 
great Shaksperean commentator indulges 
in no aesthetic dreams or whimsical con- 
jectures which taint the credibility of his 
successors by their statement of them as 
proven facts. 

Of all kinds of literature, biography 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 3 

extends the most generous hospitality. 
Its subjects live an after life in affiliation 
with the readers without regard to condi- 
tion. In seeking to renew the enthusiasm 
of our youth for this species of writing 
we visit the public library and find many 
changes in biographical history, such as 
the elimination of spurious tradition and 
fanciful conjecture. For instance, instead 
of the traditional life of Washington, 
there is a life of the true Washington; 
and, instead of a caricatured life of 
Cromwell, there is a record of the duly 
attested facts of the many-sided and won- 
drous Cromwell. With what astonish- 
ment we survey the huge issue of books 
on Shakspere which stand conspicuous on 
the shelves! There are more than ten 
thousand books and pamphlets— many of 
them of the memoir order— almost every 
one of which has a biographical preface ; 
but we find that most, if not all, the bio- 
graphers of Shakspere still lead the 
reader into the shadow of chaotic conjec- 
ture and might-have-been, and that 



4 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

Shaksperean literature still lacks a book 
on the personal life of William Shaks- 
pere that shall be to most, if not all oth- 
ers, a pruning hook cutting out the rever- 
ies and guess work which unfortunately 
have seduced the historian and misled the 
reader. We hold in our hand one of the 
more recent of these books of fictitious 
biography, transmissive " fraud of the 
imagination" which authenticates noth- 



t to a 



ing! 



As co-readers, we will now focus our 
attention and thoughts intently upon the 
celebrated letter written by the dying 
hand of Robert Greene, and addressed to 
three brother poets to whom he adminis- 
ters a gentle reproof on account of their 
by-gone and present faults, of which, 
play-writing was most to be shunned. This 
remarkable letter reveals Robert Greene 
as the most tragical figure of his time— a 
sad witness of his ultimate penitence and 
absolute confession, a character of pa- 
thetic sincerity, weirclness and charnel- 
like gloom that chills the soul. This let- 



AND ROBERT GREENE 5 

ter, so often referred to, and seemingly so 
little understood, is one of the most extra- 
ordinary pieces of writing in our literary 
annals. It has all the credibility that a 
dying statement can give, but it also evi- 
dences the fact that Robert Greene had 
previously drawn the fire of the improvis- 
ing actors "who wrought the disfigure- 
ment of the poet's work." There is one 
in particular at whom he hurls a dart and 
hits the mark. 

"Yes, trust them not; for there is an 
"upstart crow, beautified with our (po- 
rt's) feathers, that, with his Tyger's 
"heart wrapt in a Player's hide, supposes 
"he is as well able to bombast out a 
"blanke verse as the best of you; and he- 
"ing an absolute ' Johannes Factotum,' is 
"in his own conceit, the onely Shake- 
" scene in a countrie." 

This sorrow-stricken man wrote these 
words of censure with the utmost sincer- 
ity. Earlier biographers made no attempt 
to read Shakspere into these lines of re- 
proof, but those only of later times regard 



6 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

the allusion invaluable as being the first 
literary notice of Shakspere, and find 
pleasure in reading into Shakspere 's life 
the fact of his having been satirized in 
1592 under the name " Shake-scene/' used 
by Greene contumeliously. 

The letter is contained in a little work 
entitled " Greene's Groats Worth of 
Wit," " Bought with a Million of Repent- 
ance, originally published in 1592, having 
been entered at Stationers Hall on the 
20th of September in that year." "To 
those Gentlemen his Quondam acquaint- 
ance, that spend their wits in making 
Plaies." 

"With thee (Marlowe) will I first be- 
"gin, thou famous gracer of tragedians, 
"that Greene, who hath said with thee, 
"like the foole in his heart, there is no 
"God, should now give glorie unto His 
"greatnesse; for penetrating is His 
"power, His hand lies heavy upon me, He 
"hath spoken unto me with a voice of 
"thunder and I have felt He is a God that 
"can punish enemies. Why should thy 



AXD ROBERT GREENE 7 

excellent wit, His gift, be so blinded that 
thou shouldst give no glory to the 
giver?" .... 

"With thee I joyne young Juvenall, 
(Nash) that byting satyrist that lastlie 
with mee together writ a comeclie. 
Sweete boy, might I advise thee, be ad- 
vised, and get not many enimies by bit- 
ter words .... Blame not schol- 
lers vexed with sharp lines, if they re- 
prove thy too much libertie of reproof e." 

"And thou (Peele) no less deserving 
than the other two, in some things rarer, 
in nothing inferiour; driven (as my- 
self e) to extreame shifts; a little have 
I to say to thee ; and were it not an idol- 
atrous oath, I would swear by sweet S. 
George thou are unworthie better hap, 
sith thou depend est on so meane a stay, 
(theatre) Base minded men all three of 
you, if by my miserie ye be not warned; 
for unto none of you, like me, sought 
those burrs to cleave; those puppits, I 
meane, that speake from our mouths, 
those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is 



WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

it not strange that I, to whom they all 
have been beholding, is it not like that 
yon to whom they all have beene behold- 
ing, shall, were ye in that case that I am 
now, be both at once of them forsaken? 
Yes, trust them not ; for there is an up- 
start crow, beautified with our feathers, 
that, with his Tyger's heart wrapt in a 
Player's hide, supposes he is as well able 
to bombast out a blanke verse as the best 
of you; and being an absolute ' Johannes 
Factotum/ is in his own conceit the 
onely Shake-scene in a countrie. " . . . 
"But now returne I againe to you 
three, knowing my miserie is to you no 
news ; and let me heartily entreate you to 
be warned by my harmes .... For 
it is a pittie men of such rare wits 
should be subject to the pleasures of 
such rude groomes." 

Those biographers and critics who have 
written concerning Shakspere and Greene 
misapprehensively compound an inte- 
grate letter and pamphlet. It should be 
made clear that Greene's letter to his fel- 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 9 

low poets is not an integral part of 
" Groats Worth of Wit," though ap- 
pended towards the end of this pamphlet. 
The letter is strikingly personal and im- 
pressive, not a continuance of a pamphlet 
describing the folly of youth, but a mere 
appendage not properly constituting a 
portion of it. It Avas the classical com- 
mentator, Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730-85), 
we believe, who first made current the 
groundless opinion that purports to iden- 
tify Shakspere as the one pointed at, but 
most, if not alb recent biographers and 
commentators state as a "proven fact" 
that Eobert Greene was the first to bail 
Shakspere out of obscurity by the "rep- 
rehensive reference" to an "upstart 
crow. ' ' 

The effect of conjectural reading is to 
raise a tempest of depreciation by which 
Shakspere ? s biographers and commenta- 
tors have succeeded in handing down to 
posterity Greene's reputation as a pre- 
posterous combination of infamy and 
envy, harping with fiendish delight on the 



10 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

irregularities and defects of Robert 
Greene's private life, which were not 
even shadowed in his writings. The writ- 
ings of Greene "whose pen was pure" are 
exceptionally clean. Why then this un- 
merited abuse so malignant in disposition 
and passion? We answer that it is be- 
cause the biographers of Shakspere have 
been seduced from truth by a vagrant 
conjecture into the belief that William 
Shakspere was the object and recipient 
of Greene's censure. It is apparent that 
the statement which affirms this is false, 
and we shall endeavor to show that Rob- 
ert Greene's detractors are on the wrong 
trail. 



II 



There now arises the crucial enquiry 
concerning the charge that William 
Shakspere was thus lampooned in 1592 
by Robert Greene in his celebrated ad- 
dress "To those Gentlemen of his own 
" fellowship that spend their wits making 
"plaies"— inferentially, Marlowe, Xash 
and Peele. The exigency of the case de- 
mands, in the opinion of Shakspere 's 
modern biographers, the appropriation 
of Greene's reproachful reference to 
Shakspere, (though no name is men- 
tioned) jet the actor referred to by 
Greene the children in London streets 
well knew and acclaimed; and every stu- 
dent of Elizabethan literature, history 
and bibliography, should know that the 
reference is identifiable with William 
Kemp, the celebrated comic actor, jig- 
dancer, and jester, who was, in his own 
conceit, the "only Shake-scene (dance- 
" scene) in a country," "Shake-scene" 



12 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

and (dance-scene) being interchangeable 
compounds in the old meaning; but the 
votaries of Shakspere, posing as his biog- 
raphers, in the urgency of their desire to 
remove doubts which had existed respect- 
ing the beginning of Shakspere 's early 
literaiy productivity as play-maker, or as 
an elaborator of the works of other men, 
prior to the year 1592, crave some nota- 
tion of literary activity in the young man 
who went up from Stratford to London 
in 1587 (probably). 

As the immortal plays were coming out 
anonymously and surreptitiously, there is 
a very strong desire to appropriate or em- 
bezzle "the only Shake-scene" reference, 
for, in the similarity and sound of the 
compound word "Shake-scene" in one of 
its elements there is that which fits it to 
receive a Shakespearean connotation, thus 
catching the popular fancy of Shakes- 
pere's biographers and academic com- 
mentators. The compound word "Shake- 
scene" is made by the joining of two 
words generic in both its elements, and, in 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 13 

combination having generic characteris- 
tics pertaining to a large or comprehen- 
sive class— that is to say, the words 
" shake" and " scene" hear a sense in 
which they are descriptive of all the vari- 
ous things to which they are applied, and 
of all other things that share their com- 
mon properties. The fanciful biographers 
of William Shakspere rely on these words 
of reproof and censure as being the initial 
notice of his worth and work which was 
to lift him from his place of obscurity in 
the year 1592. The meaning of Greene's 
words in the idiom of the times, as in 
their contextural and natural sense, yield 
nothing which is confirmatory of such 
contention; for " dance" is connoted un- 
der the term "shake," answering to the 
first element in " Shake-scene," which in 
the old meaning meant " dance," generic 
for quick action; and " scene" meant 
"stage" instead of "scenery" as in the 
modern meaning, for the theatres were 
then in a state of absolute nudity— in 
other words, "Shake-scene" meant a 



14 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

dancing performance upon the stage. In 
the plain unobtrusive language of our 
day, as well as in Elizabethan English, 
the word "shake"— the first element in 
"Shake-scene" is interchangeable with 
"dance," and, when given a specialized 
meaning with a view to theatrical matters 
in the year 1592, with Kemp and Shaks- 
pere claimants for Greene's reproof, who 
could doubt that the name which was so 
loudly acclaimed is identifiable with the 
spectacular luminary of the times, Wil- 
liam Kemp? In setting up the comic ac- 
tor and jig-dancer as claimant for 
Greene's objurgation, we promise the 
reader attestative satisfaction by estab- 
lishing the truth of our contention by 
particular passages in "the address" 
when explained by the context as tran- 
scriptive of Kemp's actual history. 

We now direct the attention of the 
reader specifically to the arrogant and 
boastful comedian, William Kemp. This 
man, according to Robert Greene's view, 
was the personification of everything 



AXD ROBERT GREENE 15 

detestable in the actor— whose profession 
he despised. We think the biographers 
and commentators have mistaken the 
spectacnlarity of William Kemp for the 
rising sun of William Shakspere. In the 
closing years of the sixteenth, and the 
early years of the seventeenth, century 
there lived in London the most spectacu- 
lar comic actor and clown of his day, the 
greatest "Shake-scene" or (dance-scene) 
of his generation, William Kemp, the 
worthy successor of Dick Tarlton. He 
had a continental reputation in 1589. 
This year also Xash dedicated to Kemp 
one of his attacks upon Martin Marpre- 
late entitled "An Almond for a Parrot." 
"There is ample contemporary evidence 
"that Kemp was the greatest comic actor 
"of his time in England, and his noto- 
riety as a morris-dancer was so great 
"that his journeyings were called dances. 
"He was the court favorite famous for 
"his impro visions, and loved by the pub- 
"lie," but hated by academic play-writers 
and ridiculed by ballad-makers. Kemp, 



16 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

ill giving his first pamphlet "The Nine 
"Days Wonder" to the press in 1599, 
turned upon his enemies and in retalia- 
tion called them "Shake-rags," which he 
used derisively and as contumeliously as 
Greene had used "Shake-scene." The 
use of the word "Shake-rags" by Kemp 
in his first and only published work is 
prima-facie evidence, that he also made 
use of the same term, orally and in his 
usual acrimonious manner, either against 
Greene, or those of his fellowship. The 
first element in the compound words 
"Shake-scene" and "Shake-rags" is gov- 
erned b}^ the same general law of move- 
ment or rhythmic action exemplified in 
dancing; and rhvmerv. In 1640 Richard 
Brown in his "Antipodes" refers to the 
practice of jesters, in the days of Tarlton 
and Kemp, of introducing their own wit 
into poet's plays, Kemp, writing in 1600, 
asserts that he spent his life in mad jigs 
and merry jests, although he was en- 
trusted with many leading parts in farce 
or broad comedy. His dancing of jigs at 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 17 

the close of a play gave him his chief pop- 
ularity (" Camden Society Papers"). 
"The jigs were performed to musical ae- 
" companiment and included the singing 
"of comic words. One or two actors at 
"times supported Kemp in his entertain- 
"ment, dancing and singing with him. 
"Some examples of the music to which 
"Kemp danced are preserved in a manu- 
script collection of John Dowland now 
"in the library of Cambridge University. 
"The words were, doubtless, often impro- 
vised at the moment, but, on occasions, 
"they were written out and published. 
"The Stationers Register contains licen- 
ces for the publication of at least four 
"sets of words for the jigs in which 
"Kemp was the chief performer." 

According to Henslowe's Diary, Wil- 
liam Kemp was on June 15, 1592, a mem- 
ber of the company of the Lord Strange 
players under Henslowe and Alleyn, 
playing a principal comic part in the 
"Knack to Know a Knave," and intro- 
ducing into it what is called on the title 



18 • WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

page his " Applauded Merriments/' a 
technical term for a piece of theatrical 
buffoonery. In 1593 Nash warned Gabriel 
Harvey ' ' lest William Kemp should make 
merriment of him." "As early as 1586, 
'Kemp was a member of a company of 
'great importance which had arrived at 
'Elsinore where the king held court. He 
'remained two months in Denmark, and 
'received a larger amount of board 
'money than his fellow actors. In a let- 
'ter of Sir Phillip Sidney, dated Utrecht 
'March 24, 1586, he says, 'I sent you a 
'letter by Will (Kemp"), my Lord Leices- 
ter's jesting player.' It was after his 
'return from these foreign expeditions 
'that we find Kemp uniting his exertions 
'with those of Alleyn at the Rose and 
'Fortune theatres, as Prince Henry's 
'servants. During this whole period 
'from his return in 1586 from Denmark, 
'to the year 1598, he did not stay unin- 
'terruptedly at the theatres of the Bur- 
'bages. From February 19, to June 22, 
'1592, a part of Lord Leicester's com- 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 19 

"pany played under Henslowe and Al- 
"leyn. In 1602 Kemp was again in Lon- 
"don, acting under Henslowe and Alleyn 
"as one of the Earl of Worcester's men. 
"We gather from Henslowe 's Diary that 
"on March 10th, he borrowed in ready 
" money twenty shillings. 

"Kemp was a very popular performer 
"as early as 1589. "We shall see hereafter 
"that he. following the example of Tarl- 
"ton, was in the habit of extemporizing 
"and introducing matter of his own that 
"has not come down to us. 'Let those 
"that play your clowns speak no more 
"than is set down for them' (Hamlet, 
"Act. Ill, Scene II.). These words were 
"aimed at Kemp, or one of his school, 
"and it was about this date, according to 
" Henslowe 's Diary, that Kemp went over 
''from the Lord Chamberlain to the Lord 
"Nottingham players. The most import- 
ant duty of the clown was not to appear 
"in the play itself, but to sing and dance 
"his jig at the end of it, even after a trag- 
"edy, in order to soften the painful im- 



20 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

pression— (Camden Society Papers) — 
Kemp's jig of 'The Kitchen Stuff 
Woman 7 was a screaming farce of rude 
verses, some spoken, others sung; of 
good and bad witticism; of extravagant 
acting and dancing. In the art of comic 
dancing Kemp was immoderately loved 
and admired. He paid professional vis- 
its to all the German and Italian courts, 
and was even summoned to dance his 
morris-dance before the Emperor Ru- 
dolph himself at Augsburg. 
"Kemp combined shrewdness with his 
rough humor. With a view to extend- 
ing his reputation and his profits, he an- 
nounced in 1599, his intention of danc- 
ing a morris-dance from London to 
Norwich; but to his annoyance, every 
inaccurate report of his gambols was 
hawked about in publication at the time 
by book-sellers or ballad-makers, like 
Kemp's farewell to the tune of ' Kerry 
Merry Buff. ' In order to check the cir- 
culation of falsehood, Kemp offered, he 
tells us, his first pamphlet to the press 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 21 

4 (though at the time he was thought to 
' have had a hand in writing the Anti- 
'Martnist plays and pamphlets — five 
'pieces erroneously attributed to his 
'pen). The only copy known is in the 
'Bodelean Library. The title ran 
' 'Kemp's Nine Days Wonder,' the won- 
'der referred to being performed in a 
'dance from London to Norwich then 
'written by himself to satisfy his friends. 
'A woodcut on the title page shows Kemp 
'in elaborate costume with bells about 
'his knees playing to the accompaniment 
'of a drum and tabor, which a man at his 
'side is playing. This pamphlet was en- 
'tered in the Stationers Book April 22, 
'1600. The dedicatory salutation to 
'Anna Fritton," one of her Majesty's 
maids of honor, shows us how arrogant 
and conceited he must have been. 

'•Kemp started at seven o'clock in the 
"morning on the first Monday in Lent, 
"the starting point being in front of the 
4 'Lord Mayor's house, and half London 
"was astir to see the beginning of the 



22 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

' great exploit. His suite consisted of his 
'taborer, Thomas Sly; his servant, Wil- 
'liam Bee; and his overseer or umpire, 
' George Sprat, who was to see that every- 
thing was performed according to prom- 
ise. According to custom, he put out a 
' sum of money before his departure on 
' condition of receiving thrice the amount 
'on his safe return. His own fatigues 
'caused him many delays and he did not 
'arrive in Norwich until twenty- three 
'days after his departure. He spent only 
'nine da}^s in actual dancing on the road. 
'Kemp himself on this occasion contrib- 
uted nothing to the music except the 
'sound of the bells, which were attached 
'to his gaiters. In Norwich thousands 
'waited to receive him in the open mar- 
'ket-place with an official concert. 
'Kemp, as guest of the town, was enter- 
tained at its expense and received hand- 
'some presents from the Mayor who 
'arranged a triumphal entry for him. 
'The freedom of the Merchant Adven- 
'tures Company was also conferred upon 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 23 

"him, thereby assuring him a share in 

ifc the yearly income to the amount of forty 
'shillings— a pension for life. The very 
4 buskins in which he had performed his 
' dance were nailed to the wall in the Nor- 
'wieh Guild Hall and preserved in per- 
'petual memory of the exploit, which was 
' long remembered in popular literature. 
- In an epilogue Kemp announced that he 
k was shortly to set forward as merrily as 
'I may; whither, I myself know not/' 
and begged ballad makers to abstain from 
disseminating lying statements about 
him. Kemp's humble request to the im- 
pudent generation of ballad-makers, as 
he terms them, reads in part, "My nota- 
'ble Shake-rags, the effect of my suit is 
fc discovered in the title of my supplica- 
tion, but for your better understanding 
'for that I know you to be a sort of wit- 
ness bettle-heads that can understand 
'nothing but that is knocked into your 
'scalp; so farewell and crosse me no 
'more with thy rabble of bold rhymes 
'lest at my return I set a crosse on thy 



24 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"forehead that all men may know that 
"for a fool." It seems certain that Kemp 
kept his word in exhibiting his dancing 
powers on the continent. In Week's 
"Avers" (1688) mention is made of 
Kemp's skipping into France. A ballad 
entitled "An Excellent New Medley" 
(dated about 1600) refers to his return 
from Rome. In the Elizabethan play 
"Jack Drum's Entertainment" (1616), 
however, there is introduced a song to 
which Kemp's morris dance is performed. 
Hey wood, writing at this period, in his 
"Apology for Actors" (1612), says Wil- 
liam Kemp was a comic actor of high rep- 
utation, as well in the favor of Her Maj- 
esty as in the opinion of the general audi- 
ence. There is also a tribute from the 
pen of Richard Eathway (1618). Ben 
Jonson, William Rowly and John Mar- 
ston also make mention of him. 

Pretty much all that relates to the gam- 
bols of sportive Kemp in the foregoing 
pages is a mere transcription from the 
"Camden Society Papers." 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 25 

Our prime object is to establish Kemp's 
eligibility as claimant for Greene's cen- 
sure, before alluded to. We are content 
to advance the claim of another if found 
more decisive. We would elect to name 
Robert Wilson, senior, an old enemy, 
doubtless, of Robert Greene, if we did not 
think that Kemp has the better claim to 
that distinction. According to Collier, 
Wilson was not only an excellent per- 
former, but also a talented dramatist, 
especially renowned for his ready re- 
partee. Some writers affirm that the au- 
thors of the dramas "Faire Emm" and 
"Martin Marsixtus" were one and the 
same person, and that this person was 
Robert Wilson, senior, author of "Three 
"Ladies of London" and "Three Lords 
"and Ladies of London," the first pub- 
lished in 1584, and the other in 1590. 
"Faire Emm" and "Martin Marsixtus" 
having been posthumously printed, 
Greene was severe on the author of the 
former for his blamphemous introduction 
of quotations from the Bible into his love 



26 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

passages. "We know that the author at- 
tacked Greene's own works in return 
"and called them lascivious." He had 
not read the works, hut, then, an anony- 
mous writer may not very scrupulously 
confine himself to the truth. "Loth I was 
"to display myself to the world hut for 
"that I hope to dance under a mask and 
"bluster out like the wind, which, though 
"everv man heareth vet none can in sight 
"descrie." "I must answer in print what 
"they have offered on the stage" are the 
words of Greene. 

Eobert Wilson may he advanced as 
claimant for Greene's reproof by some 
persons who are of the opinion that "up- 
start crow" was both actor and play- 
wright. Supposition says Kemp also 
wrote pamphlets and plays, although at 
this time he had not given his first and 
only work to the press. It matters little 
at whom he aimed, Kemp or Wilson, so 
long as Shakespere was not the object of 
the aimer. In the Parish Register of St. 
Giles, Cripplegate, we read, "Buried, 



AND ROBERT GREENE 27 

" Robert Wilson, yeoman, a player, 20 
"Nov., 1600." 

These facts and concurring events in 
the life of William Kemp convince us that 
Shakspere was not, and Kemp very prob- 
ably was, the person at whom Greene lev- 
eled his satire by bearing witness to his 
(Kemp's) extemporizing power and his 
haughty and insolent demeanor in intro- 
ducing improvisions and interpolations 
of his "own wit into poet's plays." 

From the foregoing, it is evident that, 
at the time the letter was written, Wil- 
liam Kemp enjoyed an unequaled and 
wide spread notoriety and transient fame, 
extending not only throughout England, 
but into foreign countries as well. 

And further, by reason of his great 
prominence, in a calling which Greene 
loathed, and despised, he was brought 
easily within the range of the latter 's con- 
temptuous designation, of "upstart 
crow, ' ' 



Ill 

We have now readied the crucial mat- 
ter of the address which, according to the 
speculative opinion of many of Shaks- 
pere's biographers, contains all the words 
and sentences which they hope, when 
racked, may be made to yield support to 
their tramp conjecture that Robert 
Greene was the first to discover Shaks- 
pere as a writer of plays, or the amenclor 
of the works of other poets. The identifi- 
able words, so called, are contained in the 
following sentences: "Yes, trust them 
"not; for there is an upstart crow, beau- 
"tilled with our feathers, that, with his 
"Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's hide." 

"Upstart Crow" in Elizabethan Eng- 
lish meant in general, one who assumed a 
lofty or arrogant tone, a bragging, boast- 
ful, swaggerer suddenly raised to promi- 
nence and power, as was Kemp after the 
death of Richard Tarlton (1589). In an 
epistle prefixed to Greene's "Arcadia 






AXD ROBERT GREEXE 29 

(1587), Thomas Nash speaks of actors 
"As a company of taffaty fools with their 
' k feathers ; ' ' and ' ' The players decked 
"with poets' feathers like Aesop's 
"Crow" (E. B.) ; and again, -That with 
"his Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's 
"hide." Tiger in the plain language of 
the day stood for bully, a noisy, insolent 
man, who habitually sought to overbear 
by clamors, or by threats. These charac- 
teristics are identifiable with Kemp ; but 
the biographers of Shakspere are content 
to conjecture that Eobert Greene's par- 
ody on the line ki Oh Tyger's heart wrapt 
kk in a woman's hide" is not only a con- 
tumelious reference to actor, William 
Shakspere, but also a declaration of his 
authorial integrity by their assignment of 
"Henry VI. Part III," which was in ac- 
tion at the "Eose," when Greene's cele- 
brated address was written. 

There is prima-facie evidence that 
Greene authored the line, which he 
semi-parodied in the address, which is 
found in two places. It appears in its 



30 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

initial form "Oh Tyger's heart wrapt in 
"a serpent's hide" in the play called, 
"The Tragedy of Richard, Duke of 
"York," and "The Death of Good King 
"Henry the Sixth," and later with 
"woman" substituted for "serpent," 
again, it is found in the third part of 
"Henry VI. ", founded on the true trag- 
edy, which was acted by Lord Pembroke's 
company, of which, as Nash tells us, 
Greene was chief agent, and for which he 
wrote more than four other plays. 
"Henry VI. Part III" is generally ad- 
mitted to be the work of Greene, Mar- 
lowe and perhaps Peele. Furthermore, 
the catchwords in the lines parodied be- 
tray their author, which is a confirmatory 
fact. To borrow a citation from the 
pages of Dr. A. Grosart, "Every one who 
"knows his Greene knows that over and 
"over again he returns on anything of 
"his that caught on, sometimes abridging 
"and sometimes expanding;" and in 
semi-parodying his own lines, wrapt "Ty- 
"ger's heart" in several kinds of hides. 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 31 

It was William Kemp, the comic actor 
and dancer, not Shakspere, whom Greene 
wanted to hit. He did not consider as an 
author at all the "upstart crow" with his 
"Tyger's heart wrapt in a player's hide/' 
who bomhastecl orally his own improvis- 
ions and interpolations out in blank 
verse. 

In their great desire to discover Shaks- 
pere as the author, the words "bombast 
"out in blank verse" are seized upon by 
Shakspere 's commentators with evident 
greediness. But these words yield noth- 
ing in support of author-craft, for bom- 
bast or bombastry, in the idiom of the 
time, stood for high sounding words 
which might have proceeded from the 
mouth of a buffoon, clown, jester, monte- 
bank or actor, whose profession was to 
amuse spectators by low antics and tricks, 
and whose improvisions and extemporiz- 
ings were destitute of rhyme, but pos- 
sessed of a musical rhythm called "blank 
"verse." The words "blank verse" were 
doubtless intended for the ear of Mar- 



32 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

lowe, the great innovator, who was thus 
reminded that the notorious jig-dancer 
and clown, William Kemp, declaimed his 
own improvisions and interpolations in 
the " swelling bombast of a bragging 
"blank-verse," as Nash called it, and was 
an absolute "Johannes Factotum in his 
"own conceit"— that is, a person em- 
ployed to do many things. Who could do 
more "in his own conceit" than Kemp, 
who spent his life in mad jigs, as he says? 
Who but Kemp, the chief actor in the low 
comedy scenes, who angered the academic 
play-writers by introducing "his own wit 
into their plays and make a merriment of 
"them?" 

Greene's address to his fellow crafts- 
men does not convey plagiary, or a fur- 
bishable, imputation, nor give color to, 
nor the slightest circumstance for, the 
conjecture that Shakspere's authorial 
career had been begun as the amender of 
other poet 's plays anterior to the putative 
authorship of "Venus and Adonis." Hal- 
liwell-Phillips, the most indefatigable 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 33 

and reliable member of the Congress of 
Speculative Biographers, says that not 
one such play has been found revised, or 
amended, by Shakspere in his early ca- 
reer, Still in their extremity, Shaks- 
pere 's commentators give hospitality to 
stupid conjectures that are not reason- 
able inferences from concurrent facts, 
and construe Greene's censure of 
Kemp, (inferentially) as the first lit- 
erary notice of Shakspere. It shows 
an irrepressible desire without proof to 
confer authorship upon Shakspere one 
hundred and fifty years after his death. 
The Shakspere votaries cannot point to a 
single word, or sentence, in this celebrated 
address of Robert Greene which connects 
the contumelious name ' ' Shake-scene ' ' 
(dance-scene) with the characteristics of 
either the true, or the traditional, Shaks- 
pere. 

The biographers of Shakspere never 
grow weary of charging Robert Greene 
with professional jealousy and envy. The 
charge has no argumentative value, even 



34 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

if granting Shakspere 's early productiv- 
ity as a play-maker, or the amencler of 
the works of other men, for Greene's ac- 
tivities ran in other lines; play-making 
was of minor importance, a sort of by- 
production of his resourceful and versa- 
tile pen. The biographers of Shakspere 
are unfortunate in having taken on this 
impression, because there is prima-facie 
evidence that Greene had forsworn writ- 
ing for the stage a considerable time be- 
fore the letter was written; thus he fol- 
lowed his friend Lodge, who in 1589 
"vows to write no more of that whence 
"shame doth grow." 

The biographers and commentators, 
agreeing in their asperities, charge Rob- 
ert Greene with that worst of passions, 
envy, basing it conjecturally on the as- 
sumption of Shakspere 's proficiency as 
a drama-maker, notwithstanding the sin- 
cere and earnest words contained in his 
most pathetic letter, addressed to three 
friends, in which he counsels them to give 
up play writing, which he regarded as de- 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 35 

grading, placing their very necessities in 
the power of grasping shareholding ac- 
tors, and rendering it no longer a fit 
occupation for gentlemen. They fail to 
see the dying should he granted immu- 
nity from this ignoble and base passion. 
Our own rule of law admits as good evi- 
dence the testimony of a man who be- 
lieves himself to he dying, and so the 
letter states, "desirous that yon should 
^lh^e though himself he dying. " 

Robert Greene's charge against "up- 
" start crow" stands unshaken. Henry 
Chettle, the hack writer, and self admit- 
ted transcriber of the letter, does not re- 
tract Greene's statement. He denies 
nothing on behalf of an "upstart crow" 
(Kemp) ; for the author of "Kind Hearts 
Dreams 95 does not identify k4 Shake- 
"seene" (dance-scene) with Shakspere, 
or Shakespeare, who was not one of those 
who took offense. It is expressly stated 
that there were two of the three fellow 
dramatists, addressed by Greene (Mar- 
lowe, Nash and Peele). Still we are told 



36 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

by Shakespearean writers that the dying 
genius was pained at witnessing the pro- 
ficiency of another in the very activity 
(play-making), which he had come to re- 
gard as congruous with strolling vaga- 
bondism. He enjoined his friends to seek 
better masters "for it is a pittie men of 
"such rare wit should be subject to the 
" pleasure of such rude groomes, " 
"painted monsters, apes, burrs, peasants, 
"puppets," not play-makers, but actors, 
who had been beholden to him and his fel- 
low craftsmen whom he addressed. 

There is another aspect in which the 
charge of professional jealousy presents 
itself to the mind of the reader; those 
who covet that which another possesses, 
or envies success, popularity or fortune. 
To charge Greene with envy is most un- 
charitable by reason of his versatility. 
Now what was there in the possession of 
William Shakspere in 1592 that could 
have awakened in the mind of Robert 
Greene so base a passion as envy. The 
name Shakspere had no commercial value 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 37 

in 1592, for Sliakspere of the stage is de- 
scribed many years after this date as 
merely a "man player" and "a deserving 
"man," Xote this admission by Dr. In- 
gleby: "Assuredly no one during the 
"century had any suspicion that the gen- 
"ins of Shakespeare was unique." "His 
"immediate contemporaries expressed no 
"great admiration for either him, or his 
"works." There is not a particle of evi- 
dence to show that Eohert Greene was 
envious of any writer of his time ; nor had 
he cause to he ; hut the way his contem- 
poraries and successors robbed and plun- 
dered him proves the reverse to be true. 

"Xay, more, the men that so eclipst his 

fame, 
"Purloynde his plumes; can they deny 

the same?" 

The fact is, Sliakspere passed through 
and out of life without having attained 
the distinction, or celebrity, won by 
Greene in his brief literary career of but 
nine short years. The more truthful of 
Sliakspere 's biographers concede that the 



38 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

subject of their memoirs was not, in Ms 
day. highly regarded, and that his obscur- 
ity in 1592 is obvious. There was not the 
least danger of the author of "Hamlet" 
"driving to penury'' the dean of English 
novelists, Robert Greene, who was su- 
preme in prose romance, a species of lit- 
erature, which appealed to the better 
class of the reading public. Rival-hating 
envy! Robert Greene cannot be brought 
within the scope of such a charge, for in 
1592, he was not striving to obtain the 
same object which play writers were pur- 
suing. 

The fame of Robert Greene during his 
lifetime eclipsed that of his contempor- 
aries. "He was in fact the popular au- 
"thor of the day. His contemporaries 
"applauded the facility with which he 
" turned his talents to account." "In a 
"night and a day," says Nash, "would he 
"have yearkecl up a pamphlet as well as 
"in seven years, and glad was that prin- 
"ter that might be so blest to pay him 
"dear for the very dregs of his wit." 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 39 

Even Ben Jonson, "the greatest man of 
"the last age/' according to Dry den, had 
no such assurance in his day, if we may 
judge from his own account of his liter- 
ary life, which shows that he had to strug- 
gle for a subsistence, as no printer was 
found glad, or felt himself blest, to pay 
him dear for the cream, much less the 
verv "dresrs of his wit." He told Drum- 
mond that the half of his comedies were 
not in print, and that he had cleared but 
200 pounds by all bis labor for the public 
theatre. Tt has been said by one : "In the 
"breadth of his dramatic quality, his 
"range over every kind of poetic excel- 
lence, Jonson was excelled by Shakes- 
"peare alone." (p. 437, "A Short His- 
"tory of the English People.") When 
not subsidized by the court he was driven 
by want to write for the London theatres ; 
he lived in a hovel in an alley, where he 
took service with the notorious play 
broker. To such as he, reference is made 
by Henslow, who in his diary records 
the grinding toil and the starvation 



k k 



40 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"wages of his hungry and drudging 
4 ' bondsmen, ' ' who were struggling for 
the meanest necessities of life. This Ti- 
tan of a giant brood of playwrights, in 
the clays of his declension wrote mendi- 
cant epistles for bread, and, doubtless, in 
his extremity recalled Robert Greene, the 
admonisher of three brother poets "that 
"spend their wits in making plaies." 
"Base minded men, all three of you! if by 
"my miseries ye be not warned, for unto 
44 none of you, like me, sought those burrs 
44 to cleave, those puppits, I mean that 
44 speak from our mouths those antics 
"garnisht in our colors. Is it not strange 
44 that I, to whom they all have been he- 
4 'holding, shall, were ye in that case that 
"I am now, be both at once of them for- 
saken? . O that I might in- 
"treatc your rare wits to be employed in 
44 more profitable courses, and let those 
44 apes imitate your past excellence, and 
44 never more acquaint them with your ad- 
4 ' mired inventions. ' ' 

It was one of this breed of puppets, we 



AND ROBERT GREENE 41 

are told, who awakened incarnate envy in 
the breast of Robert Greene, and engen- 
dered rivalship against William Shaks- 
pere, whose votaries, in their dreams of 
fancy, see him revising the dramatic- 
writings of Robert Greene, the most re- 
sourceful, versatile, tireless and prolific 
of literary men. He was a writer of 
greatest discernment from the viewpoint 
of the people of his time, "for he pos- 
sessed the ability to write in any vein 
"that would sell. " He only, of all the 
writers of his time, gave promise of being 
able to gain a competence by the pen 
alone, a thing which no writer did, or 
could do, in that day, by writing for the 
stage alone. Hon. Cnshman K. Davis in 
"The Law in Shakespeare" says, "He 
"(Shakspere) is the first English author 
"who made a fortune with his pen." In 
the absence of credible evidence, Mr. Da- 
vis assumes that the young man who 
came up from Stratford was the author 
of the plays. The senator does not seem 
aware of the fact that Shakspere of 



42 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

Stratford was a shareholding actor, re- 
ceiving a share in the theatre, or its pro- 
fits, in 1599 ; a partner in one or more of 
the chief companies; a play broker who 
purchased and mounted the plays of 
other men; and that he, like Burbage, 
Henslowe and Alleyn, speculated in real 
estate. He was shrewd in money matters 
and became very wealthy, but not by 
writing plays. Suppose that William 
Shakspere of Stratforcl-on-Avon had au- 
thored all the plays associated with his 
name, that alone would not have made 
him wealthy. The price of a play varied 
from four to ten pounds, and all Shaks- 
pere 's labors for the public theatre would 
have brought no more than five hundred 
pounds. The diary of Philip Henslowe 
makes it clear that up to the year 1600 
the highest price he ever paid was six 
pounds. The Shakespeare plays were not 
exceptionally popular in that day, not be- 
ing then as now, "the talk of the town." 
Not one of them equalled in popularity 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 43 

Kiel's "The Spanish Tragedy," or Mar- 
lowe's "Dr. Faustus." 

Shakespeare was soon superseded by 
Fletcher in popular regard. Only one of 
the Shakespeare tragedies, one historical 
play, and eight comedies were presented 
at the Court of James First, who reigned 
twenty-two years. Plays, written by such 
hack writers as Dearborn, or Cliettle, 
were quite as acceptable to princes. 

Robert Greene's romances were "a 
bower of delight," a kind of writing held 
in high favor by all classes. Sir Thomas 
Overbury describes his chambermaid as 
reading Greene's works over and over 
again. It is a pleasure to see in the elder 
time Greene's writings in hands so full 
of household cares, since he labored to 
make young lives happy. Robert Greene's 
works express every variation in the 
changing conditions of life. The poetry 
of his pastoral landscapes are vivid word 
pictures of English sylvan scenes. The 
western sky on amorous autumn days is 
mantled with sheets of burnished gold. 



44 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

The soft and gentle zephyr blows over 
castled crag and fairy glen' fragrant with 
the breath of flowers. 

In the manuals of our literature great 
prominence is given to the fact that 
Greene led a dissolute, or irregular, life, 
as if the debauchment of the author was 
transmitted by his writings. There are 
no indecencies in his works to attest the 
passage of a debauchee. Like many per- 
sons born to, and nurtured by, religious 
parents, Greene doubtless exaggerated 
his own vices. He was bad, but not alto- 
gether bad- It may truly be said of him 
that, in regard to all that pertains to pen- 
itence and self abasement, he spares not 
himself, but like John Bunyan, he was 
given to selfupbraiding. He (Bunyan) 
declares that it is true that he let loose 
the reins on the neck of his lust : that he 
delighted in all transgressions against the 
divine law; and that he was the ring 
leader of the youth of Elstow in all vice. 
But, when those who wished him ill, ac- 
cused him of licentious amours, he called. 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 45 

God and the angels to attest Ms purity. 
Xo woman, lie said, in heaven, earth, or 
hell, could charge him with having ever 
made any improper advances to her. 
Blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking seem 
to have been Bunyan's only transgression 
after all. In Bohert Greene's writings, 
we have the reverse of ^Herriek's shame- 
"ful pleading that if his verse was im- 
"pure, his life was chaste." Unlike Her- 
rick, Greene did not minister to the un- 
chaste appetite of readers for tainted lit- 
erature, either in his day, or in the after 
time. Powerless to condemn Greene's 
writings, Shakspere's votaries would des- 
ecrate his ashes. 

Deplore as we must his dissolute liv- 
ing, it was of short duration, for he went 
from earth at the age of two and thirty, 
and the evil effects have been lost in 
Time's abatements. His associates, 
doubtless were as dissolute as he himself. 
Nash wrote: "With any notorious crime 
'I never knew him tainted, and he inher- 
ited more virtues than vices,' 1 The 



46 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

reader, at any rate, will give but little 
credence to the accusations of such a 
hyena-clog as Gabriel Harvey. Kobert 
Greene was not "lip-holy," nor heart- 
hollow, for, in regard to his wife and 
their separation, "he took to himself all 
"blame, breathed never a word against 
"her, and did not squander all of his 
"earnings in dissipation, but sent part of 
"his income to the good woman, the wife 
"of Lis youth, and addressed to her in 
"loving trust the last letter he wrote." 
Gabriel Harvey, drenched in hate, could 
not rob the "Sweet-wife letter of its 
"pathos." 

In all the galleries of noble women, 
Greene's heroines deserve a foremost 
place, for all the gracious types of wom- 
anhood belonged to Greene, before they 
became Shakespeare's. "Robert Greene 
"is the first of our play-writers to repre- 
sent upon the public stage the purity 
"and sweetness of wife and maiden." 
Unselfish love and maternity are sketched 
with feminine delicacy and minuteness of 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 47 

touch in all the tenderness of its purity. 
His writings have assauged the sorrow of 
the self-sacrificing mother, who is always 
a queen uncrowned, long suffering and 
faithful. Bohert Green kk is always on the 
u side of the angels.' 5 When loud mouthed 
detraction calls him badhearted, we 
should not forget that this confessedly 
dissolute man could, and did, keep invio- 
late the purity of his imagination; few 
have left a wealthier legacy in feminine 
models of moral and physical beauty. 
What is most characteristic in the pages 
of Greene is the absence, of the indecen- 
cies which attest the passage of the au- 
thor of "Lear/ 5 k *the damnable scenes 
"which raised the anger of Swinburn and 
kk Avhich Coleridge attempted in vain to 
' 'palliate." 

Little is known of Greene's life; and 
into the little we do know, his malignant 
enemy, Gabriel Harvey, has attempted to 
inject a deadly virus. The inaccurate 
figurative expressions in his reputed 
posthumously printed works (an alleged 



48 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

description of his manner of life) cannot 
be interpreted literally, "but may be 
"resolved in a large measure into morbid 
" self -upbraidings like the confession 
"made by the revival convert who sees 
"and paints his past in its very darkest 
"colors." But why should the modern 
reader linger over the irregularities of 
dissolute-living authors like Greene and 
Poe, whose writings are exceptionally 
clean. Remember Robert Burns' noble 
words, "What done we partly may com- 
"pute but know not what resisted." The 
commentators and pharisaic critics, who 
have written concerning Greene, are 
mere computists of the poet's vices; min- 
isters of hate, who burlesque the poet's 
soul stiffening with despair, and display 
their ghoulish instincts "in travestying 
"so pathetic and tragical a deathbed as 
"Greene's." Students of Elizabethan 
literature know that Robert Greene re- 
sisted the temptation to write in the best 
paying vein of the age, that of minister- 
ing to the unchaste appetites of readers 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 49 

for ribaldries. "To Ms undying honor 
" Robert Greene, equally with James 
" Thompson, left scarcely a line, that, dy- 
eing, lie need have wished to blot out." 

There is no record extant of his living 
likeness. Chettle gives this pleasant de- 
scription of his personal appearance, 
"With him was the fifth, a man of indif- 
"ferent years; of face, amiable; of body, 
"well proportioned; his attire after the 
" habit of scholar-like gentleman, only his 
"hair was somewhat long, whom I sup- 
posed to be Robert Greene, Master of 
"Arts." Nash notices his tawny beard, 
"a jolly long red peake like the spire of 
"a steeple which he cherished continually 
"without cutting, whereat a man might 
"hang a jewel, it was so harp and penet- 
rant." Harvey, who had never seen 
Greene, says that he wore such long hair 
as was only worn by thieves and cut- 
throats, and taunts Nash with wearing 
the same "unseemly superfluity/ ' The 
habit of wearing the hair long is not un- 
usual with poets. John Milton "cher- 



50 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"ished the same superfluity" as does also 
Joaquin Miller. 

Robert Greene expired on the third of 
September, 1592. When the dead genius 
was in his grave, Harvey gloated and 
leered with hellish glee, and wrote of 
Greene's "most woeful and rascal estate, 
"how the wretched fellow or, shall I say, 
"the prince of beggars, laid all to gage 
"fore some few shillings and was at- 
' ' tended by lice. ' ' This is one of Harvey 's 
malignant, vitriolic, discharges in his at- 
tempt to spatter the memory and deface 
the monument of the dead. "Achilles 
"tortured the dead body of Hector, and, 
"as Antonious and his wife, Fulva, tor- 
"mented the lifeless corpse of Cicero, so 
"Gabriel Harvey hath showed the same 
"inhumanities to Greene that lies low in 
"his grave." The testimony of Gabriel 
Harvey, whose malignant attacks on the 
memory of Greene by monstrously exag- 
gerated statement, is vitiated by his own 
statement that " he was cheated out of an 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 51 

" action for libel against Greene by his 
" death." 

Harvey was vulgarly ostentations, 
courting notoriety by the gorgeonsness of 
his apparel; currying favor with the 
great, and aping Venetian gentility after 
his return from Italy. He was a dabbler 
in astrology, a prognosticator of earth- 
quakes, and constructor of prophetic al- 
manacs. The failure of his predictions 
subjected him to much bitter ridicule, 
His inordinate vanity is best shown by 
his publication of everything spoken or 
written in commendation of himself, by 
his obsequious friends and flatterers, who 
snickered with the public generally, as he 
was an object .of ridicule, the butt on 
which to crack their jokes. 

In one of those fanciful studies in 
Elizabethan literature, which we now hold 
in our hand, we may read, in a work 
called "A Snip for an Upstart Courtier 
"or A Quaint Dispute Between Velvet- 
i i -breeches and Cloth-breeches, ' ' that 
Greene has very vulgarly libeled Har-- 



52 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

vey's ancestry; but, when we turn to 
Greene's book we learn that the vulgarity 
consists in calling Gabriel Harvey's 
father a ropemaker. Only a snob would 
regard any honest employment as a deg- 
radation, and furthermore, the passage 
does not point contumeliously and spite- 
fully at Gabriel Harvey's father, for the 
reference is very slight. "How is he 
' ' (Gabriel 's father) abused ? ' ' writes 
JSTash, "Instead of his name he is called 
"by the craft he gets his living with." 
Still the lines which so mortally offended 
Gabriel were suppressed by Greene. Not- 
withstanding this, those biographers and 
critics whose sole object is to blacken the 
poet's memory, conceal from the reader 
the fact of the detachment of all refer- 
ence to a rope-maker. Harvey was ex- 
tremely anxious to push himself anions 
the aristocracy in order to conceal his 
humble antecedents. 

With all his faults, there was nothing 
of this weakness or snobbishness in Robert 
Greene, who had himself sprung from the 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 53 

common people, though born to good con- 
dition. Robert Burton, a contemporary, 
writing in "The Spacious Time of the 
"Great Elizabeth" says that idleness was 
the mark of the nobility, and to earn 
money in any kind of trade was despic- 
able. Gabriel Harvey flung in Greene's 
face the fact that he made a living by his 
pen. Had young Greene lived a longer 
life, with all its wealth of bud and bloom, 
Ave should now have in fruition a luxur- 
iance of imagination and versatility of 
diction possessed by few. With longer 
life he would doubtless "have gained 
"mastery of himself, when he would have 
"gone forward on the path of moral re- 
generation;" for there was in the po- 
et's strivings, during the last few years 
of his life, the promise and prophecy of 
a glorious future. His soul enlarged, he 
battled for the commonweal; his heart 
was with the lowly and his voice was for 
the right when freedom's friends were 
few. 

In his play "The Pinner of Wake- 



54 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"field," first printed in 1599, Kobert 
Greene makes a hero, and a very strenu- 
ous one, of a mere pound-keeper who 
proudly refuses knighthood at the hands 
of the king. In the sketch given by Pro- 
fessor J. M. Brown we read, "In the first 
scene of the play when Sir Nicolas Man- 
nering appears in Wakefield with his 
commission from the rebel, Earl of Ken- 
dal, and demands victuals for the rebel 
army, the stalwart pound-keeper steps 
forward, makes the knight eat his words 
and then his seal! 'What! are you in 
choler? I will give you pills to cool 
your stomach. Seest thou these seals? 
Now by my father's soul, which was a 
yeoman's when he was alive, eat them 
or eat my dagger's point, proud 
squire!' The Earl of Kendal and other 
noblemen next appear in disguise and 
send their horses into the Pinner's corn 
to brave him. The pound-keeper ap- 
proaches and after altercation strikes 
the Earl. Lord Bondfield says, ' Villain, 
' what hast thou done? Thou hast struck 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 55 

"'an Earl.' Pinner answers, 'Why, what 
' " care I? A poor man that is true is bet- 
'"ter than an earl if he he false'." A 
yeoman boxing or cuffing the ear of an 
earl! This has all the breezy freshness 
of American democracy. 

"How different from this is Shakes- 
'peare's conception of the place of the 
'working-man in society. In King Lear, 
'a good servant protests against the cru- 
'elty of Began and Cornwall toward 
'Gloucester, and is killed for his cour- 
tage." "Give me my sword," cries Be- 
gan, "a peasant stand up thus!" The 
voice of the yeoman is often heard in 
Greene's drama, not as buffoon and 
lackey, as in Shakespeare, but as freeman 
whose voice is echoed at Naseby and 
Marst on's gory fields of glory, where the 
sturdy yeomanry of England strove to do 
and to dare for the eternal right— sol- 
diers who never cowered from "sheen of 
"spear," nor blanched at flashing steel. 
With Greene rank is never the measure 
of merit as with Shakespeare. To peer 



56 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

and yeoman alike, lie gave equal hospital- 
ity; for Robin Greene, as Ms friends 
called him, was as friendly to the poor 
man's rags as to the purple Robe of 
King. Greene in his popular sympathies 
is thoroughly with the working classes, 
the common people, of whom Lincoln 
says, "God loves most, otherwise he 
" would not have made so many of them." 
His heroes and heroines are taken, many 
of them, from humble life. In his Pin- 
ner of Wakefield there is a very clear 
discernment of democratic principle in 
the struggle against prerogative. Half 
of those plays of Greene's which we still 
possess, are devoted to the representation 
of the life of the common people which 
gave lineage to Abraham Lincoln, Ben- 
jamin Franklin and John Bunyan. If 
these are any guide to his character, his is 
one distinguished both by his amicable 
and by his amiable qualities. 

We have in the " Coney-catching se- 
"ries" Greene's exposure of the practice 
of sharpers and knaves, who were fleec- 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 57 

ing the country people who came to Lon- 
don. The author of these tracts shows 
great courage in his effort to abate fool- 
catching. Greene's life was threatened, 
and it required the utmost exertion of his 
friends to prevent his assassination. The 
Coney-catching knaves, who felt the hal- 
ter being drawn about their necks, threat- 
ened to cut off his hand if he would not 
desist. Greene, notwithstanding these 
threats, would not be swerved from his 
noble aim, but met them like a true Ro- 
man, single-handed and alone, while his 
literary enemies took advantage of this 
opportunity to blacken his good name. 
" Greene made these revelations for the 
"good of the commonwealth, and dis- 
played great courage in facing all risks 
"in so doing. Xo books are more out- 
4 ' and-out sincere. ' ' 

Greene's account of the repentance and 
reformation of a fallen woman, told in a 
way that discloses the poet's kindness of 
heart and fullness of humanitarian 
spirit, reveals his better self. "He as- 



58 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"sured liis readers, in the words of the 
"woman herself, that her first false step 
"gradually led her on to complete ruin, 
"so heavy-burdened with grief and 
"shame that death seemed to her a bene- 
"faction, and the grave the only place for 
"perfect rest." Not a few there may 
have been, who, on reading Greene's ac- 
count of the reformation and redemption 
of this unfortunate woman, were started 
on the path of regeneration, while the 
dim-eyed critic can see nothing but the 
blurred reputation of the poet. But who 
shall estimate Robert Greene's influence 
on individual happiness? Who shall say 
how many thousands have been made 
wiser, happier, and better by a writer 
who held out a kind and friendly hand, 
and had a heart as true behind it? His 
statue would crown Trafalgar's towering 
shaft more worthily than the statue of 
England's greatest naval hero does; for 
there is more true honor and merit in the 
man who wrote purely to bring back 
from evil courses to a state of moral rec- 



AND ROBERT GREENE 59 

titude, than in a monument for the vic- 
tory over many enemies. 

Greene's non-dramatic works are the 
largest contribution left by any Eliza- 
bethan writer to the novel literature of 
the day. "He was at once the most ver- 
satile and the most laborious of literary 
"men." Famous, witty, and brilliant, he 
Avas one of the founders of English fic- 
tion, and is conceded to be the author of 
half a dozen plays for the theatre. In 
them we have the mere "flotsam and jet- 
"sam" of his prolific pen. What would 
we not give for all the plays of Bohert 
Greene from whom his contemporaries 
and successors purloyned plumes! Ac- 
cording to Ben Jonson, it was as safe to 
pillage from Greene in his day, as it is to 
persecute his reputation in ours. He was 
a graduate of both universities, was a 
man of genius, but did not live to do his 
talents full justice. A born story teller, 
like Sir "Walter Scott, he could do good 
work easily and quickly. 

We glean the following from the pages 



60 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

of "The English Novel in the Time of 
' Shakespeare," by J. J t Jusserand, 
' Greene's prose tale, 'Pandosto, the Tri- 
"umph of Time," had an extraordinary 
' success, while Shakspere's drama ' Win- 
der's Tale' founded on Greene's Pan- 
'dosto was not printed, either in authen- 
tic or pirated shape, before the appear- 
ance of the 1623 folio, while Greene's 
'prose story was published in 1588 and 
' was renamed half a century later, 'The 
"History of Dorostus and Fawnia.' So 
'popular was it that it was printed again 
'and again. We know of at least seven- 
'teen editions, and in all likelihood there 
'were more throughout the seventeenth 
'century, and even under one shape or 
'another throughout the eighteenth. It 
'was printed as a chap-book during this 
'last period and in this costume began a 
'new life. It was turned into verse in 
'1672, but the highest and most extraor- 
dinary compliment of Greene's per- 
formance was its translation into 
'French, not only once but twice. The 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 61 

'* first time was at a moment when the 
" English language and literature were 
"practically unknown and as good as 
" non-existent to French readers. In fact 
"every thing from Greene's pen sold. All 
u of his writings enjoyed great popular- 
ity in their day. and. after the lapse of 
"three centuries, have been deemed wor- 
u thy of publication, insuring the reha- 
bilitation of Greene's splendid genius." 
We are content to believe that almost 
all of the so-called posthumous writings 
of Robert Greene are spurious, and that 
but few genuine chips were found in the 
literary work-shop of the poet after his 
death. We accept the very striking and 
impressive address to his brother play- 
wrights, the after-words to a " Groats 
Worth of Wit." We also may shyly ac- 
cept the sweet wife letter as the authentic 
product of the poet's mind, heart and 
hand. Of this letter, there are two ver- 
sions, neither of which are very trust- 
worthy, as both are from posthumed pam- 
phlets. One, which we believe to be a 



62 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

forgery, is found in "The Repentance." 
The other is found in a pamphlet written 
hj his malignant enemy, Harvey, which 
contains an account of the poet's last ill- 
ness and death. Nash writes about Har- 
vey, "From the lousy circumstance of his 
"poverty before his death and sending 
"that miserable writt to his wife, it can- 
"not be but thou lyest, learned Gabriel." 
We would not set down as auto-biograph- 
ical the posthumous pamphlets, even 
though of unquestioned authenticity, for 
in the repentance Greene is made to sav, 
"I need not make long discourse of my 
"parents who for their gravitie and hon- 
"est life are well known and esteemed 
"among their neighbors, namely in the 
"citie of Norwich where I was bred and 
"borne;" and then he is made to contra- 
dict all this in "Groats Worth of Wit," 
where the father is called Gorinius, a de- 
spicable miser. "Greene is not known to 
"have had a brother to be the victim of 
"his cozenage." 

As "there is a soul of truth in things 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 63 

"erroneous," there may be a soul of truth 
in the following letter contained in "The 
"Repentance": 

"Sweet wife, if ever there was any 

■good will or friendship between thee 

'and me, see this bearer (my host) 

"satisfied of his debt. I owe him tenne 

'pounds and but for him I had per- 

"ished in the streetes. Forget and for- 

"give my wrongs done unto thee and 

"Almighty God have mercie on my 

'soule. Farewell till we meet in hea- 

"ven for on earth thou shalt never see 

'me more. 

'This 2nd day of Sept., 1592. 
"Written by thy dying husband, 
"ROBERT GREENE." 

The reader will notice the statement in 
the posthumed letter that the poet had 
contracted a debt to the sum of ten 
pounds, equal to $-100 present money, but 
there is nothing whatever about leaving 
many papers in sundry bookseller's 
hands which Chettle averred in the ad- 
dress "To the Gentlemen Readers Kind 
"Hearts Dreame." If this were a fact, 



64 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

the bookseller doubtless would have been 
called upon; "see this bearer (my host) 
" satisfied of his debt/' and sweet wife 
would not have bourne the burden while 
booksellers felt themselves blest to pay 
clear for the very dregs of her husband's 
wit. 

Those writers who express no doubt of 
the authenticity of the posthumed pam- 
phlets, leave their readers to set down as 
auto-biographical whatever portions of 
those pieces he may think proper. At the 
same time the trend of impulse is given 
the reader by the critics that he may not 
fail to read the story of the poet's life out 
of characters devoid of all faith in hon- 
esty and in virtue, while the author 
(Greene) is anxious evidently to point a 
moral by them and reprove vice. These 
forged pamphlets and so-called auto- 
biographical pamphlets make Greene ac- 
cuse himself of crimes which he surely 
did not commit, such as the crime of theft 
and murder. He says, "I exceeded all 
" others in these kinds of sinnes " and he 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 65 

is represented as the most atrocious vil- 
lain that ever walked the earth. There is 
not an atom of evidence adduced to show 
Francisco in "Never Too Late" was in- 
tended by the author for a picture of him- 
self, and we do not believe that Greene 
wrote the pamphlet in which Roberto, in 
" Groats Worth of Wit" is one of the de- 
spicable characters. 

Very little is known with any degree of 
certainty concerning the personal life of 
Robert Greene, and very little, if any- 
thing, in regard to his family or ancestry, 
although much prominence is given by 
imaginary writers to the history of his 
person in the manuals of our literature. 
These writers attach an auto-biograph- 
ical reality to their dreams of fancy. 
They take advantage of Greene's un- 
bounded sincerity and his own too candid 
confession in the address to the play- 
writers, and of his irrepressible desire to 
sermonize, whether in plays or pamphlets, 
with all the fervor of a devout Methodist 
having a license to exhort. The closest 



66 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE . 

analogy to Greene's position, in fact, is 
that of the revival preacher— as Prof. 
Storojenko puts it — " who, to make the 
' picture of the present as telling as pos- 
sible, sees and paints his past in its very 
' blackest colors. This self-flagellation is 
' strongly connected with a really attrac- 
tive feature of Greene's character; we 
'mean his sincerity, a boundless sincerity 
'which never allowed him to spare him- 
'self. Robert Greene was incapable of 
'posing and pretending to be what he 
'was not. This is whv we may fearlessly 
'believe him when he speaks of the an- 
'guish of his soul and the sincerity of 
'his repentance. A man whose deflection 
'from the path of virtue cost him so 
'much moral suffering cannot, of course, 
'be measured by the same standard as 
'the man who acts basely, remains at 
'peace with himself and defends his 
' faults by all kinds of sophistry. Speak- 
ing further of his literary labors, he 
'never dealt in personalities in exposing 
'some of the crying nuisances of London 



AND ROBERT GREENE 67 

"and is perfectly silent as to the moral 
"change in his own character, which was 
"the fruit of his dealing with them. In 
"a word, he conceals all that might, in his 
"opinion, modify the sentence that he 
"pronounces on his own life for the edi- 
"fication of others." 



IV 



There is a commendative piece of writ- 
ing which should he read in connection 
with Greene's letter to " divers play- 
"makers." We refer to the preface to 
"Kind Hearts Dreams/' written by 
Henry Chettle, which was registered De- 
cember 8, 1592. Chettle says, "About 
"three months since died M. Robert 
"Greene, leaving many papers in sundry 
"book-seller's hands, among others, his 
"'Groats Worth of Wit' in which a letter 
"written to diverse play-makers is offen- 
sively by one or two of them taken." 
Chettle 's statement about many papers in 
sundry book-sellers hands may be dis- 
credited because of the poet's urgent ne- 
cessities, and the strong desire on the 
part of book-sellers to publish Greene's 
writings. Of this we may be sure, that 
the letter was not placed in book-sellers 
hands by Greene or for him. He would 
not have called his friends to repentance 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 69 

in that way, for it would have given pub- 
licity to the defects in the lives of his 
friends as well as his own. 

The letter evidences the fact of its hav- 
ing been written as a private letter to 
three of the poet's friends (Marlowe, 
Nash and Peele). If sent, it did not reach 
them, but was surreptitiously procured, 
doubtless, by some hack-writer, (inferen- 
tially, Henry Chettle, who transcribed 
it.) Gabriel Harvey may have been ac- 
cessory to its procurement, as his ghoul- 
ish instinct led him to visit the poor shoe- 
maker's house where Greene died, on the 
day following the poet's funeral in search 
of matter foul and defamatory, and with 
ink of slander to blacken the poet's mem- 
ory. This snobbish ape of gentility, Ga- 
briel Harvey, hated Greene because he 
called his father by "the craft he gets his 
"living with." However, when Greene 
learned that Harvey was ashamed of his 
father's humble employment, that of 
ropemaker, he straightway canceled the 
offensive allusion, but Harvev still con- 



70 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

tinned to manifest the same hateful ma- 
lignity and venomous spite. The letter is 
a fine character study of the three poets 
addressed. Greene drew out the true 
feature of every distinguishing mark or 
trait, both mental and moral, of these, his 
fellow-craftsmen, who, though he did not 
name them, are asserted to he Marlowe, 
Nash and Peele. Greene characterized 
them individually, and twice he collec- 
tively admonished them thus, "Base 
"minded men all three of you, if by my 
"miseries ye be not warned," and, in the 
concluding part of the letter, "But now 
"return I again to you three, knowing my 
"miseries is to you no news and let me 
"heartily entreat you to be warned by 
"my harmes." 

All of Shakspere's biographers and 
commentators aver that Shakspere was 
not one of the three persons addressed. 
How then could Chettle's words bear wit- 
ness to his ( Shakspere 's) civil demeanor 
or factitious grace in writing. Mr. Fleay 
* stated many years ago (1886) that there 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 71 

was an entire misconception of Chettle's 
language that Sliakspere was not one of 
those who took offense. They are ex- 
pressly stated to have been two of the 
three authors addressed by Greene. The 
recent Shakespearean writers have evi- 
dently mistaken Chettle's placation of 
Xash or Pecle, or either of the three play- 
makers addressed by Greene, it does not 
matter which, for an apology to Sliaks- 
pere, who was not the object of Greene's 
satire or Chettle's placation for were not 
Xash, Marlowe and Peele each " excellent 
"in the quality he professes?'' Had they 
not lived in an age of compliment they 
would have merited these complimental 
phrases of Henry Chettle ? For their 
names were in the trump of fame. 

Christopher Marlowe, the first great 
English poet, was the father of English 
tragedy and the creator of English blank 
verse. He is, by general consent, identi- 
fied with the first person addressed by 
Greene, "With thee will I first begin. 
"thou famous gracer of tragedians, who 



72 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"hath said in his heart there is no God. 
"Why should thy excellent wit, His gift, 
" be so blinded that thou should give no 
" glory to the giver?" The second per- 
son referred to is identifiable with 
Thomas Nash, "With thee I join, young 
"juvenall, that by ting satyrist," though 
not with equal accord, as the first with 
Marlowe, as some few persons prefer to 
name Thomas Lodge. This prediliction 
for Lodge is based on their having been 
co-authors in the making of a play 
("That lastlie with me together writ a 
"comedie"). This fact, however, signi- 
fies very little, for it is generally conceded 
that Marlowe, Nash, Peele, Lodge and 
Greene mobilized their literary activities 
in the production of not a few of the ear 
lier plays called Shakspere's. 

We are convinced that Lodge was not 
the person addressed by Greene as young 
juvenall. He was absent from England 
at the date of Greene's letter, having left 
in 1591 and did not return till 1593, 
Moreover, he had declared his intention 



AND ROBERT GREENE C3 

long before to write no more for the the- 
atre. In 1589 lie vowed "to write no more 
"of that whence shame doth grow." At 
Christmas time in 1592 he was in the 
Straits of Magellan. Born in 1550, Lodge 
led a virtuous and quiet life. He was 
seventeen years older than Nash, and 
four years older than Greene, who would 
not, in addressing one four years his sen- 
ior, have used these words, "Sweet hoy 
"might I advise thee." The youthf ill- 
ness of Nash fits well. He was boyish in 
appearance. Born in Nov., 1567, he was 
seven years younger than Greene, and 
was the youngest member of their fellow- 
ship. The mild reproof "for his too 
"much liberty of speech" contained in 
the letter, justifies the belief that Thomas 
Nash was referred to as "young juvenall, 
"that byting satyrist, who had vexed 
"scholars with bitter lines." 

The equal unanimity and general con- 
sent which identifies the first with Mar- 
lowe, identifies the third and last person, 
who had been co-worker in drama making 



74 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

of the same fellowship, with George 
Peele, "and thou no less deserving than 
"the other two, in some things rarer, in 
"nothing inferior" driven (as myself) to 
"extreame shifts, a little have I to say to 
"thee." Chettle could, however, have 
bourne witness to Peele "his civil de- 
"meanor and factitious grace in writ- 
ing." Peele held the situation of city 
poet and conductor of pageants for the 
court. His first pageant bears the date 
of 1585, his earliest known play, "The 
"Arraignment of Paris" was acted be- 
fore 1584. "Peele was the object of pat- 
ronage of noblemen for addressing lit- 
erary tributes for payment. The Earl 
6 of Northumberland seems to have pre- 
sented him with a fee of three pounds, 
' In May, 1591, when Queen Elizabeth 
' visited Lord Burleigh's seat of Thea- 
'bald, Peele was employed to compose 
'certain speeches addressed to the queen, 
' which deftly excused the absence of the 
' master of the house, by describing in 
'blank verse in his 'Polyphymnic,' the 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 75 

" honorable triumph at tilt. Her majesty 
"was received by the Right Honorable 
"the Earl of Cumberland." In January, 
1595, George Peele, Master of Arts, pre- 
sented his "Tale of Troy" to the great 
Lord Treasurer through a simple messen- 
ger, his eldest daughter, "necessities 
"servant." Peele was a practised rhet- 
orician, who embellished his writings 
with elegantly adorned sentences and 
choice fancies. He was a man of pol- 
ished intellect and social gifts, and pos- 
sessed of a very winsome personality. 
"His soft, caressing woman voice" low, 
sweet and soothing, may have had a con- 
siderable effect upon Chettle, and could 
not have been unduly honored by Chet- 
tle 's apology in witnessing "his civil de- 
"meanor and factitious grace in writ- 
ing." 

As Henry Chettle had been brought 
into some discredit by the publication of 
Greene's celebrated letter, and his admis- 
sion that lie re-wrote it, we know that the 
letter must have been surreptitiously pro- 



76 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

cured as evidenced by its contents. The 
letter is as authentic, doubtless, as any 
garbled or mutilated document may be; 
but Chettle's foolish statement contained 
in his preface to "Kind Hearts Dreams" 
has awakened the suspicion, in regard to 
the authorship of "Groats Worth of 
"Wit," that, while the letter (or as much 
as Chettle chose to have published) is 
genuine, "I put something out," the pam- 
phlet "Groats Worth of Wit" is spuri- 
ous, and evidently not the work of Robert 
Greene. Who can be content to believe 
Chettle's statement that Greene placed 
this criminating letter in the hands of 
printers, or that it was left in their hands 
by others at his request? A private let- 
ter, written to three friends, who have 
been co-workers in drama-making, call- 
ing them to repentance, charging one 
(Marlowe) with diabolical atheism! This 
was a very serious charge in those times, 
when persons were burnt at the stake for 
professing their unbelief in the doctrine 
of the Trinity. 



AXD ROBERT GREENE 77 

Cliettle was the first to make current 
the charge of atheism against Marlowe, 
the one of them that took offense, and 
whose acquaintance he (Cliettle) clicl not 
seek. Cliettle reverenced Marlowe's 
learning, and would have his readers be- 
lieve that he did greatly mitigate Greene's 
charge, but the contents of the letter as 
transcribed by Cliettle and printed by the 
bookmakers, discredit Cliettle 's state- 
ment, as the charge of diabolical atheism 
was not struck out, and was, if proven, 
punishable by death. 

There is no evidence adduced to show 
that Marlowe was indignant because of 
Greene's admonition, contained in a pri- 
vate letter written to three play-makers 
of his own fellowship, but resented the 
public charge of atheism, for which he, 
Cliettle, as accessory and transcriber, 
was chiefly responsible in making public. 
We know that Marlowe was in retreat at 
the time of his death at Deptford, for in 
May, 1593, following the publication of 
Greene's letter printed at the end of the 



78 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

pamphlet, "Groats Worth of Wit," the 
Privy Council issued a warrant for Mar- 
lowe's arrest. A copy of Marlowe's blas- 
phemies, so called, was sent to Her High- 
ness, and endorsed by one Richard Bame, 
who was soon after hanged at Tyburn for 
some loathsome crime. But a few days 
later, before Marlowe's apprehension, 
they wrote in the parish-book at Dept- 
ford on June 1st " Christopher Marlowe 
"slain by Francis Archer." At the age 
of thirty, he, "the first and greatest in- 
" heritor of unfulfilled renown," went 
where "Orpheus and where Homer are." 
The loss to English letters in Mar- 
lowe's untimely death cannot be mea- 
sured, nevertheless, England of that day 
was spared the infamy of his execution. 
However, the zealots of those days found 
a subject, in Francis Kett, a fellow of 
Marlowe's college, who was burnt in Nor- 
wich in 1589 for heresy. Unlike Mar- 
lowe, he was a pious, God-fearing man 
who fell a victim to the streimousity with 
which he maintained his religious convic- 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 79 

tions. Another subject was found in the 
person of Bartholomew Leggett, who was 
burnt at the stake for stating his confes- 
sion of faith, which was identical with the 
religious belief of Thomas Jefferson and 
President William H. Taft. The times 
were thirsty for the blood of daring spir- 
its. The shores of the British Isles were 
strewn with the wreckage of the great 
Armada. In Germany, Kepler (he of the 
three laws) was struggling to save his 
poor old mother from being burnt at the 
stake for a witch. In Italy, they burnt 
Bruno at the stake while Galileo played 
recanter. 

That Marlowe was one of the play- 
makers who felt incensed at the publica- 
tion of Greene's letter admits of no doubt. 
He most likely would have resented the 
public charge of atheism. "With neither 
"of them that take offense was I ae- 
"quainted (writes Chettle) and with one 
"of them (Marlowe) I care not if I never 
"be." In such blood bespattered times, 
Chettle could and did write "for the first 



80 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"(Marlowe) whose learning I reverence, 
"and at the perusing of Greene's book 
"(letter) struck out what in conscience I 
"thought he in some displeasure writ, or 
"had it been true yet to publish it was 
"intolerable." Chettle's conscience must 
have been a little seared, for he omitted 
to strike out the only statement of fact 
contained in the letter, which could have 
imperiled the life of Marlowe ! The letter 
evidences the fact that all of that portion 
referring to Marlowe was not garbled, 
and that there was not any intolerable 
something struck out, but instead, as 
transcriber for the pirate publisher, he 
retained the fulminating passage, "had 
"said in his heart there is no God." Not- 
withstanding Chettle's statement, we are 
of the opinion that the passage about 
Marlowe was printed in its integrity. 

Chettle's having failed to omit the 
charge of diabolical atheism, reveals the 
strong personal antipathy he had for 
Marlowe. Few there are who set up Mar- 
lowe as claimant for Chettle's apology, 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE SI 

and fewer still, who would not regard him 
worthy of the compliment, "factitious 

"grace in writing/ ' and whose acquaint- 
ance Chettle did not seek, but whose fas- 
cinating personality and exquisite feeling 
for poetry was the admiration of Dray- 
ton and Chapman, who were among the 
noblest, as well as the best loved, of their 
time. George Chapman was among the 
few men whom Ben Jonson said he loved. 
Anthony Wood described him as " a per- 
son of most reverend aspect, religious 
"and temperate qualities. 1 ' Chapman 
sought conference with the soul of Mar- 
lowe : 

"Of his free soul whose living subject 

stood 
"Up to the chin in the Pierian flood." 

Henry Chettle 's act of placation is of- 
fered to one of two of the three play- 
makers addressed, and not to the actor 
referred to, who was not one of those ad- 
dressed; therefore, "upstart crow" could 
not have been the recipient of Chettle 's 



82 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

apology, or plaeation, in whose behalf 
("upstart crow") Chettle retracts noth- 
ing. The following reference is to one of 
the offended playmakers pointed at in 
Greene's address, whom Chettle wishes to 
placate, "The other whome at that time 
"I did not so much spare as since I wish 
"I had— that I did not I am as sorry as 
"if the original fault had been my fault 
"because myself have seen his demeanor 
"no less civil excellent in the qualities he 
"professes; besides, divers of worship 
"have reported his uprightness of deal- 
ing, which argues his honesty and his 
"factitious grace in writing that ap- 
proves his art." With the votaries of 
Shakspere, however, these words of Chet- 
tle chime with their dreams of fancy; for 
there is a pre-inclination and a predeter- 
mination to read Shakspere into them, as 
if the words of Greene and Chettle were 
not accessible to all inquirers— words 
that can be made to comprehend only one 
of the two playmakers that take offense, 
who must be one of the three (Marlowe, 



AND ROBERT GREENE 83 

Nash and Peele) admonished by Greene, 

and who were of his fellowship. The 
reader, after studying Elizabethan liter- 
ature and history, is content to believe 
that the least celebrated of the three 
playmakers pointed at in Greene's ad- 
dress (Marlowe, Nash and Peele), stood 
high enough in the scale of literary merit 
in 1592 to be the recipient of Chettle's 
praise. 

The word "quality," in "excellent in 
"the quality he professes," is by the fan- 
tastically inclined, made to yield a con- 
venient connotation, but in the ordinary 
and contextural meaning of the word, 
may embrace all that makes or helps to 
make any person such as he is. Are these 
words of Chettle written in 1592 when the 
theatre was lying under a social ban, and 
the actor was still a social outcast, identi- 
fiable with a vagabond at law, or with 
Thomas Nash, who took his bachelor's 
degree at Cambridge in 1585? "In the 
"autumn of 1592, Xash was the guest of 
"Archbishop Whitgift at Crogdon, 



84 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

" whither the household had retired for 
"fear of the plague, and, as the official 
"antagonist of Martin Marprelate was 
"constrained to keep up such a character 
"as would enable divers of worship to re- 
"port his uprightness of dealing/' he cer- 
tainly was entitled to commendation for 
his "factitious grace in writing." The 
appropriation of the complimentary re- 
marks of Chettle on Nash, or any one of 
the three playmakers addressed, to 
Shakspere, who was not one of those ad- 
dressed, and therefore, could not have 
been the recipient of Chettle 's apology, 
so called, is one of the fancies in which 
critics of the highest reputation have in- 
dulged. There is nothing equal to this 
in all the annals of literature, unless it be 
"Cicero's famous letter to Lucretius, in 
"which he asks the historian to lie a little 
"in his favor in recording the events of 
"his consulship, for the sake of making 
"him a greater man." 

Chettle lost no time in transcribing the 
posthumous letter. Doubts as to "Groats 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 85 

"Worth of Wit" were entertained at the 
time of publication. Some suspected 
Nash to have had a hand in the author- 
ship, others accused Chettle. Nash did 
take offense at the report that it was his. 
Its publication caused much excitement 
and the rumor went abroad that the pam- 
phlet was a forgery. "Other news I am 
"advised of," writes Nash, in an epistle 
prefixed to the second edition of "Pierce- 
" penniless," "that a scald, trivial, lying; 
"pamphlet called 'Greene's Groats Worth 
'"of Wit 5 is given out to be of my doing. 
"God never have care of my soul, but ut- 
"terly renounce me, if the least word or 
"syllable in it proceeded from my pen, or 
"if I were any way privy to the writing 
"or printing of it." We regard these 
words confirmatory of the fact that 
"Groats Worth of Wit" is not a work of 
unquestioned authenticity, and, further- 
more, that Xash did not believe it the 
work of Robert Greene. Prima facie, it 
is spurious, for Xash spoke in high praise 
of Greene's writings. He neither would, 



86 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

nor could, have used tlie words " scald, tri- 
"vial, lying" of a genuine work of Robert 
Greene, whose writings were held in high 
favor by all classes. Nash could not have 
taken offense at the allusion of Greene, 
which was rather complimental, though 
personal, and not intended for publica- 
tion; but it did, however, contain some 
slight mixture of censure,— " Sweet boy, 
"might I advise thee, get not many eni- 
"mies by bitter words. Blame not schol- 
ars vexed with sharp lines if they re- 
" prove thy too much liberty of reproof." 
Nash was very angry, but only because 
Greene's letter was given to the public by 
Chettle, who felt constrained to placate 
"that byting satyrist," whose raillery he 
had reason to fear, by bearing witness to 
"his civil demeanor and factitious grace 
"in writing." 

Votaries of Shakspere may take their 
choice of one of the three addressed. 
Which one shall be named? What mat- 
ter it to them, with Shakspere barred, 
whether Nash, Peele or Marlowe be 



AXD ROBERT GREENE 87 

named, the least of whom was worthy of 
Chettle ? s commendation ! 

There is not a crumb of evidence ad- 
duced for Shakspere as a putative author 
of plays until 1598, and then only in the 
variable and shadowy Elizabethan title 
page. Chettle terms Greene "the only 
"comedian of a vulgar writer,'' meaning 
he was a writer in the vernacular tongue 
or common language, a fact which proves 
Shakspere 's nihility as playmaker in 
1592. Now the fact of the matter is that 
this " lying pamphlet/' so called by Xash, 
was not authored by Greene. It should 
he called, " Chettle 's Groats Worth of 
"Wit/ 5 for the pamphlet proper is from 
his pen or some other hack writer's. The 
letter alone was authored by Greene, ad- 
dressed as a private letter to three fellow 
poets, and surreptitiously procured for 
Chettle and transcribed by him. Chettle 
writes, "I had only in the copy this 
"share— it was ill written— licensed it 
"must he, ere it could be printed, which 
"could never he if it might not he read. 



88 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

u To be brief I writ it over and as nearly 
" as I could follow the copy. Only, in that 
" letter I put something out, but in the 
"whole book, not a word in, for I protest 
"it was all Greene's, not mine, nor Mas- 
ter Nash's, as some unjustly have af- 

" firmed." 

The letter and pamphlet both in 
Greene's handwriting would have been 
the best possible evidence of the genuine- 
ness of its contents and legibility, diet- 
tie's not offering in evidence the original 
letter is strong presumptive proof of the 
commission of a forgery. He, if not the 
chief actor in the offense, was an acces- 
sory after the fact, and should, in his ap- 
peal to the public in defense of his repu- 
tation, have brought forward the pam- 
phlet itself, embracing the whole matter, 
for examination and comparison; for we 
feel satisfied that such an examination 
would prove that the celebrated letter 
was authored and in the handwriting of 
Robert Greene, and not so ill written that 
it could not be read by the printers, who 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 89 

must have been familiar with the hand- 
writing of the largest contributor of the 
prose literature of his day. For our- 
selves, what we have adduced convinces 
us that the tract, " Groats Worth of 
Wit/ 5 was authored and written by one 
of Philip Henslowe's hacks, presumedly. 
Henry Chettle, a literary dead beat, and 
an indigent of many imprisonments, who 
was always importuning the old play- 
broker for money. Since the tract, 
"Groats Worth of Wit," was in Chettle 's 
own handwriting, he strove to fool the 
printers by transcribing Greene's letter 
and binding both together, through that 
"disguised hood" to fool the public. 
Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, 
"You may fool all the people some of the 
time, and some of the people all the 
time, but you cannot fool all the people 
all of the time. 11 It is possible that 
Chettle may have fooled some of the peo- 
ple of his own generation some of the 
time, but in later times, through the mis- 
apprehension of his quoted words, he has 









90 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

fooled the Sliaksperolators all of the 
time. Chettle, however, would not permit 
the letter to come forward in its integrity 
and speak for itself, disclosing the nature 
of the intolerable something "stroke 
"out," which piques our curiosity, but 
not in anticipation of any of those inde- 
cencies that taint the writings of Ben 
Jonson and the work of many writers of 
that age, not excepting Shakespeare, who 
is also amenable in no slight degree to the 
charge of the same coarseness of taste 
which excites repulsion in the feelings of 
Leo Tolstoy. 

The fact of the whole matter appears 
to be that Henry Chettle, wishing to 
profit financially by the great commercial 
value of Robert Greene's name, was ac- 
cessory to the embezzlement and the com- 
mission of a forgery, and was the silent 
beneficiary of the fraud. The mutual 
connection of hack writer and pirate pub- 
lisher is so obvious that a jury of discern- 
ing students, with the exhibits, presented 
together with the presumptive proofs and 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 91 

inferential evidence eontexturecl in both 
letter and preface, should easily confirm 
our opinion of the ineredibleness of Chet- 
tle's statements contained in the preface 
to "Kind Hearts Dreams." The evidence 
of their falsity is, prima-facie, destitute 
of credible attestations. 

We are made to see, in our survey of 
the age of Elizabeth, much, that is in 
striking contrast with the spirit and ac- 
tivities of our time. There is a notable 
contrast between the public play house of 
those days, where no respectable woman 
ever appeared, and with the theatre of 
our day— the rival of the church as a 
moral force. In the elder time "the per- 
"manent and persistent dishonor at- 
tached to the stage," and the stigma 
attached to the poets who wrote for the 
public playhouse, attached in like man- 
ner to the regular frequenters of public 
theatres, the majority of whom could 
neither read nor write, but belonged 
chiefly to the vicious and idle class of the 
population. At all the theatres, accord- 



92 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

ing to Malone, it appears that noise and 
show were what chiefly attracted an au- 
dience in spite of the reputed author. 
There was clamor for a stage reeking 
with blood and anything ministering to 
their unchaste appetites. The spectacu- 
lar actor and clown was relatively ad- 
vantaged, as he could say much more 
than was set clown for him. Kemp's ex- 
temporizing powers of histrionic buffoon- 
ery, gagging, and grimacing, paid the 
running expenses of the playhouse. 

"It must be borne in mind that actors 
"then occupied an inferior position in 
"society, and that in many quarters even 
"the vocation of a dramatic writer was 
"considered scarcely respectable." Ben 
Jonson's letter to the Earl of Salisbury, 
lets us see very clearly that he regarded 
playwriting as a degradation. We tran- 
scribe it in part as follows : 

"I am here, my honored Lord, unex- 
amined and unheard, committed to a 
"vile prison and with me a gentleman 
"(whose name may perhaps have come 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 93 

kk to your Lordship), one Mr. George 
" Chapman, a learned and honest man. 
k *The cause (would I could name some 
" worthier though I wish we had known 
"none worthy our imprisonment) (is 
"the words irk-me that our fortune 
"hath necessitated us to so despise a 
" course) a play, my Lord—/' 

We see how keenly Jonson felt the dis- 
grace, not on account of the charge of re- 
flecting on some one in a play in which 
they had federated, for he protested his 
own and Chapman's innocence, but he 
felt that their degradation lay chiefly in 
writing stage poetry, for drama-making 
was regarded as a degrading kind of em- 
ployment, which poets accepted who were 
struggling for the meanest necessities of 
life, and were driven by poverty to their 
production, and to the slave-driving play- 
brokers, many of whom became very rich 
by making the flesh and blood of poor 
play-writers their maw. 

In looking into Philip Henslowe's old 

note-hook, we see how the grasping play- 



94 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

brokers of the olden time speculated on 
the poor play-writers necessities, when 
plays were not regarded as literature; 
when the most strenuous and laborious 
of dramatic writers for the theatre could 
not hope to gain a competence by the pen 
alone, but wrote only for bread; when 
play-writers were in tne employ of the 
shareholding actors, as hired men; and 
when their employers, the actors, were 
social outcasts who, in order to escape the 
penalty for the infraction of the law 
against vagabondage, were nominally re- 
tained by some nobleman. In further 
proof of the degradation which was at- 
tached to the production of dramatic 
composition, "when Sir Thomas Boclley, 
" about the year 1600, extended and re- 
" modeled the old university library and 
"gave it his name, he declared that no 
"such riff-raff as play-books should ever 
"find admittance to it." "When Ben 
"Jonson treated his plays as literature 
"by publishing them in 1616 as his works, 
"he was ridiculed for his pretentions, 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 95 

" while Webster's care in the printing of 
"his plays laid himself open to the charge 
fcb of pedantry." 



V 



What Lord Rosebery says of Napoleon 
is equally true of the author of "Ham- 
" let" and "King Lear/' "Mankind will 
"always delight to scrutinize something 
"that indefinitely raises its conception of 
"its own powers and possibilities, and 
"will seek, though eternally in vain, to 
"penetrate the secrets of this prodigious 
"intellect/' and it is to Stratford-on- 
Avon that many turn for the final glimpse 
of what Swinburne calls "the most tran- 
scendent intelligence that ever illumi- 
"nated humanity." William Shakspere, 
the third child and eldest son (probably), 
of John Shakspere, is supposed to have 
been born at a place on the chief highway 
or road leading from London to Ireland, 
where the road crosses the river Avon. 
This crossing was called Street-ford or 
Stratford. This, at any rate, was the 
place of his baptism in 1564, as is evi- 
denced by the parish register. The next 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 97 

proven fact is that of his marriage in 
1582, when lie was little more than eigh- 
teen years old. Before this event nothing 
is known in regard to him. 

John Shakspere, the father apparently 
of William Shakspere, is first discovered 
and described as a resident of Henley 
Street, where our first glimpse is had of 
him in April, 1552. In that year he was 
fined the sum of twelve pence for a breach 
of the municipal sanitary regulations. 
Nothing is known in regard to the place 
of his birth and nurture, nor in regard to 
his ancestry. The evidence is, prima- 
facie, that the Shaksperes were of the 
parvenu class. John Shakspere seems to 
have been a chapman, trading in farmer's 
produce. In 1557 he married Mary Ar- 
clen, the seventh and youngest daughter 
of Bobert Arden, who had left to her 
fifty-three acres and a house, called 
"Ashbies" at TTilmeeote. He had also 
left to her other land at YTilmecote, and 
an interest in two houses at Smitterfield. 



98 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

This step gave John Shakspere a repu- 
tation among his neighbors of having 
married an heiress, and he was not slow 
to take advantage of it. His official 
career commenced at once by his election 
in 1557, as one of the ale-tasters, to see to 
the quality of bread and ale ; and again in 
1568 he was made high bailiff of Strat- 
ford. John Shakspere was the only mem- 
ber of the Shakspere family who was 
honored with civic preferment and confi- 
dence, serving the corporation for the 
ninth time in several functions. How- 
ever, the time of his declination was at 
hand, for in the autumn of 1578 the 
wife's property at Ashbies was mort- 
gaged for forty pounds. The money sub- 
sequently tendered in repayment of the 
loan was refused until other sums due to 
the same creditor were repaid. John 
Shakspere was deprived of his alderman- 
ship September 6, 1580, because he did 
not come to the hall when notified. On 
March 29, he produced a writ of habeas 
corpus, which shows he had been in 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 99 

prison for debt. Notwithstanding Ms in- 
ability to read and write, lie had more or 
less capacity for official business, but so 
managed his private affairs as to wreck 
Ms own and his wife's fortune. 

At the time of the habeas corpus mat- 
ter William Shakspere was thirteen 
years old. "In all probability," says his 
biographer, "the lad was removed from 
" school, his father requiring his assist- 
ance. " There was a grammar school in 
Stratford which was reconstructed on a 
medieval foundation by Edward VI, 
though the first English grammar was 
not published until 1586. This was after 
Shakespere had finished his education. 
u Xo Stratford record nor Stratford tra- 
dition says that Shakspere attended the 
" Stratford grammar school." But, had 
the waning fortune of his father made it 
possible, he might have been a student 
there from his seventh year— the prob- 
able age of admission— until his improvi- 
dent marriage when little more than eigh- 
teen and a half years old. However, a 



100 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

provincial grammar school is a conven- 
ient place for the lad about whose activi- 
ties we know nothing, and whose educa- 
tion is made to impinge on conjecture and 
fanciful might-have-been. 

We are told that Shakspere must have 
been sent to the free school at Stratford, 
as his parents and all the relatives were 
unlearned persons, and there was no 
other public education available; never- 
theless, it was the practice of that age to 
teach the boy no more than his father 
knew. One thing is certain, that the 
scholastic awakening in the Shakspere 
family was of short duration, for it began 
and ended with William Shakspere. His 
youngest daughter, Judith, was as illiter- 
ate as were her grandparents. She could 
not even write her name, although her 
father at the time of her school age had 
become wealthy, and his eldest daughter 
"the little premature Susanna," as De 
Quincy calls her, could barely scrawl her 
name, being unable to identify her hus- 
band's (Dr. Hall) handwriting, which no 



AND ROBERT GREENE 101 

one but an illiterate could mistake. Her 
contention with the army surgeon, Dr. 
James Cook, respecting her husband's 
manuscripts, is proof that William 
Shakspere was true to his antecedents by 
conferring illiteracy upon his daughters. 
The Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avoii was 
not exceptionally liberal and broad 
minded in the matter of education in con- 
trast with many of his contemporaries, 
notably Richard Mulcaster, (1531-1611), 
who says that "the girl should be as well 
"educated as her brother," while the real 
author of the immortal plays had also 
written, "Ignorance is the curse of God," 
and, "There is no darkness but ignor- 



ance." 



It was not the least of John Shaks- 
pere 's misfortunes that in November, 
1582, his eldest son, William, added to his 
embarrassments, by premature and 
forced marriage. It is the practice of 
Shakespere's biographers to pass hur- 
riedly over this event in the young man's 
life, for there is nothing commendable in 



102 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

his marital relations. There is expressed 
in it irregularity of conduct and probable 
desertion on his part; pressure was 
brought to bear on the young man by his 
wife's relations, and he was forced to 
marrv the woman whom he had wronged. 
Who can believe that their marriage was 
a happy one, when the only written words 
contained in his will are not words ex- 
pressive of connubial endearment, such 
as i ' dear wife " or " sweet wife, ' ' but ' ' my 
"wife?" He had forgotten her, but by 
an interlineation in the final draft, she 
received his second best bed with its fur- 
niture. This was the sole bequest made 
to her. 

We are by no means sure of the iden- 
tity of his wife. We do not know that 
she and Shakespere ever went through 
the actual ceremony of marriage, unless 
her identity is traceable through Anne 
Wateley, as a regular license was issued 
for the marriage of William Shaxpere 
and Anne Wateley of Temple Grafton, 
November 27, 1583. Richard Hathaway, 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 103 

the reputed father of Shakspere's wife, 
Anne, in his will dated September 1, 
1581, bequeathed his property to seven 
children, his daughters being Catherin, 
Margaret and Agnes. Xo Anne was men- 
tioned. The first published notice of the 
name of William Shakspere's (supposed) 
wife appears in Eowe's "Life of Shakes- 
"pere" (1709), Avherein it is stated that 
she u was the daughter of one Hathaway 
u said to have been a substantial yeoman 
"in the neighborhood of Stratford." 
This was all that Betterton, the actor 
Eowe's informant, could learn at the 
time of his visit to Stratford-on-Avon. 
The exact time of this visit is unknown, 
but it was probably about the year 1690. 
This lack of knowledge in regard to the 
Hathaways shows that the locality of 
Anne Hathaway 's residence, or that of 
her parents, was not known at Stratford. 
The house at Shotterv, now known as 
Anne Hathaway 's cottage, and reached 
from Stratford by fieldpaths, may have 
been the home of Anne Hathaway, wife 



104 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

of William Shakspere, before liis mar- 
riage, but of this there is no proof. 

Shakspere was married under the 
name "Sliagspere," but the place of mar- 
riage is unknown, as his place of resi- 
dence is not mentioned in the bond. In 
the registry of the bishop of the diocese 
(Worcester) is contained a deed wherein 
Sandells and Richardson, husbandmen of 
Stratford, bound themselves in the bish- 
op's consistory court on November 28, 
1582, as a surety for forty pounds, to free 
the bishop of all liability should any law- 
ful impediment, by reason of any precon- 
tract, or consanguinity, be subsequently 
disclosed to imperil the validity of the 
contemplated marriage of William 
Shakspere with Anne Hathaway. Pro- 
vided, that Anne obtained the consent of 
her friends, the marriage might proceed 
with at once proclaiming the bans of mat- 
rimony. The wording of the bond shows 
that, despite the fact that the bridegroom 
was a minor by nearly three years, the 
consent of his parents was neither called 



AND ROBERT GREENE 105 

for, nor obtained, though necessary "for 
" strictly regular procedure." Sandells 
and Richardson, representing the lady's 
family, ignored the bridegroom's family 
completely. In having secured the deed, 
they forced Shakspere to marry their 
friend's daughter in order to save her 
reputation. Soon afterwards— within 
six months— a daughter was born. More- 
over, the whole circumstances of the case 
render it highly probable that Shakspere 
had no thought of marriage, for the wan- 
ing fortune of his father had made him 
acquainted with the " cares of bread." 
He was a penniless youth, not yet of age, 
having neither trade, nor means of liveli- 
hood 9 and was forced by her friends into 
marrying her— a woman eight years 
older than himself. In 1585 she pre- 
sented him with twins. 

When he left Stratford for London we 
do not know positively, but the advent of 
the twins is the approximate elate of the 
youth's Hegira. He lived apart from his 
wife for more than twenty-five years. 



106 WILLIAM SHAKSfPERE 

The breath of slander never touched the 
good name of Anne (or Agnes), the neg- 
lected wife of William Shakspere. There 
is prima-facie evidence that the play- 
broker's wife fared in his absence no bet- 
ter than his father and mother, who, dy- 
ing intestate in 1601 and 1608, respec- 
tivelv, were buried somewhere bv the 
Stratford church, but there is no trace of 
any sepulchral monument, or memorial. 
If anything of the kind had been set up 
by their wealthy son, William Shakspere, 
it would certainly have been found by 
someone. The only contemporary men- 
tion made of the wife of Shakspere, be- 
tween her marriage in 1582 and her hus- 
band's death in 1616, was as the borrower, 
at an unascertained date, of forty shil- 
lings from Thomas Whittington, who had 
formerly been her father's shepherd. The 
money was unpaid when Whittington 
died in 1601, and his executor was di- 
rected to recover the sum from Shakspere 
and distribute it among the poor of Strat- 
ford. There is disclosed in this pecuniary 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 107 

transaction, coupled with the slight men- 
tion of her in the will and the barring of 
her dower, prima facie evidence of Wil- 
liam Shakspere\s indifference to, and 
neglect of, if not dislike for, his wife. All 
this is in striking contrast with the con- 
duct of Sir Thomas Lucy, whom the biog- 
raphers of Shakespere have attempted to 
disparage, and whose endearment for his 
wife is so feelingly expressed in his will. 
And, in contrast also, is the conduct of 
Edward Alleyn, famous as an actor, and 
as the founder of Dulwich College, who 
lived with his wife in London, and called 
her " sweet mouse." 

The tangibility of this Shakspere of 
Stratford-on-Avon is very much in evi- 
dence along pecuniary lines, especially as 
money lender, land-owner, speculator and 
litigant. In 1597 he bought New Place 
in Stratford for sixty pounds ; also men- 
tioned as a holder of grain at Stratford 
X quarters. The following entry is in 
Chamberlain's accounts at Stratford in 
1598: "Paid to Mr. Shaxpere for one 



108 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"lode of stone xd;" in the same year 
Richard Qniney wrote to William 
Sliakspere for a loan of thirty or forty 
pounds; in 1599 William Sliakspere was 
taken into the new Globe Theatre Com- 
pany as partner; in 1602 Sliakspere 
bought one hundred seven acres of arable 
land at Stratford for three hundred two 
pounds (in his absence the conveyance 
was given over to his brother, Gilbert) ; 
in the same year he bought a house with 
barns, orchards, and gardens, from Her- 
cules Underhill for sixty pounds; also a 
cottage close to his house, New Place; in 
1605 Sliakspere bought the thirty-two- 
year lease of half Stratford tithes for 
four hundred forty pounds; in 1613 
Sliakspere bought a house near Black- 
friars' Theatre for one hundred and forty 
pounds, and mortgaged it next day for 
sixty pounds; in 1612 Sliakspere is men- 
tioned in a law suit brought before Lord 
Ellsimore about Stratford tithes ; in 1611 
Hamnet, his only son, died at Stratford 
at the aoe of eleven and half vears. The 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 109 

father, however, set up no stone to tell 
where the hoy lay. 

In the autumn of the year 161-t Shaks- 
pere became implicated with the land- 
owners, William Combe and Arthur Man 
nering, in the conspiracy to enclose the 
common field in the vicinity of Stratford, 
The success of this rapacious scheme 
would have advantaged Shakspere in his 
freehold interest, hut might have affected 
adversely his interest in the tithes, so he 
secure! himself against all possible loss 
by obtaining from Ripliiigliam. Combe's 
agent, in October, 1614, a deed of indem- 
nification ; then, in the spirit of his agree- 
ment, he acted in unison with the two 
greedy land-sharks to rob the poor people 
of their ancient rights of pasturage. The 
unholy coalition caused great excitement. 
The humble citizens of Stratford were 
thoroughly aroused, and the town corpor- 
ation put up a sharp and vigorous oppo- 
sition to the scheme, for enclosure would 
have caused decay of tillage, idleness, 
penury, depopulation, and the subversion 



110 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

of homes. Happily, the three greedy cor- 
morants Combe, Mannering and Shaks- 
pere failed in their efforts and the com- 
mon field was unenclosed. 

Shaksperc is thought to have been 
penurious for his litigious strivings point 
in that direction, but this feature of his 
character was not disclosed in 1596 and 
1599, when he sought to have his family 
enrolled among the gentry, as shown by 
his extravagance in bribing the officers 
of the Herald College to issue a grant of 
arms to his father, "a transaction which 
" involved," says Dr. Farmer, "the false- 
hood and venality of the father, the son 
"and two kings-at-arms, and did not es- 
"cape protest, for if ever a coat was cut 
"from whole cloth we may be sure that 
"this coat-of-arms was the one." Shaks- 
pere himself was not in a position to 
apply for a coat-of-arms— "a player stood 
"far too low in the social scale for the 
"cognizance of heraldry." Nevertheless, 
recent writers on the subject of Shake- 
speare stamp this bogus coat-of-arms on 



AND ROBERT GREENE 111 

the covers of their books. We know that 
the Shaksperes did not belong to the 
Armigerous part of the population, and 
that they stood somewhat lower in the 
social scale than either the Halls or 
Quineys, who bore marital relations with 
them. 

Shakspere's son-in-law, John Hall, was 
a master of arts and an eminent phy- 
sician. He was summoned more than 
once to attend the Earl and Countess of 
Northampton at Ludlow Castle. He was 
of the French Court School, and was 
opposed to the indiscriminate process of 
bleeding. On June 5, 16G7, Dr. Hall was 
married at Stratford-on-Avon to Shak- 
spere's eldest daughter, Susanna. Strat- 
ford then contained about fifteen hun- 
dred inhabitants. One hundred sixty-two 
years later, Garrick gave his unsavory 
description of Stratford-on-Avon as "the 
"most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved, wretch- 
"ed-looking town in all Britain." Cot- 
tages of that day in Stratford consisted 
of mud walls and thatched roofs. "At 



112 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"this period and for many generations 
"afterwards the sanitary conditions of 
"the thoroughfares of Stratford-on-Avon 
' ' were simply terrible. ' ' 

On February 10, 1616, Thomas Quiney, 
a vintner, and also an accomplished 
scholar and penman, was married at 
Stratford church to Judith, Shakspere's 
younger daughter, who could neither read 
nor write. The marriage ceremony took 
place without a license or proclaiming the 
bans. For this breach of ecclesiastical 
procedure both the parties were sum- 
moned to the court at Worcester and 
threatened with excommunication. When 
the fortune hunter goes forth to woe, and 
is determined to win, he is content to 
wade through reeking refuse and muck- 
heaps to marry a rich heiress and does 
not much care if her histrionic father by 
XXXIX Elizabeth were a vagabond. 

If "there is a soul of truth in things 
"erroneous," so there may be a soul of 
truth in the creditableness of the Shak- 
spere traditions, for in them are revealed 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 113 

the environment in which they had their 
genesis, and the character of the inventor 
or fabricator. All of the traditions are 
comparatively recent or modern, and 
were made current by people who were, 
with few exceptions, coarse and densely 
ignorant. These apocryphal accounts 
serve to show also how little educated 
people knew, or cared, about writing with 
literary or historical accuracy when 
Shakspere was the subject. Unfortu- 
nately all of the traditions about Shak- 
spere are of a degrading character. 

The poaching escapade of his having 
robbed a park is one of the invented 
stories of fancy-mongers. There is very 
little likelihood that the young husband, 
with a wife and three babies to support, 
would voluntarily place himself in a posi- 
tion where he would have to flee from 
Sir Thomas Lucy's prosecution; thereby 
degrading the lowermost rank of life by 
bringing disgrace upon himself, his wife 
and children, while his parents in strait- 
ened circumstances were struggling to 



114 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

keep the wolf from the door. The records 
show that Sir Thomas Lucy had no park 
either at Charlecote or Fulbroke, still the 
Lucys of a later day were not anxious to 
lose the honor of having spanked Shak- 
spere for poaching on the ancestral pre- 
serves. 

England was called in those days "The 
" toper's paradise/' and tradition informs 
us that Shakspere was one of the Bedford 
topers. However, we should not infer 
from this that William Shakspere, a firm 
man of business, was at any time a 
drunken sot. The only story recorded 
during Shakspere 's life is contained in 
John Manninghanrs note-book. It savors 
strongly of the tavern, the diarist crimi- 
nating Shakspere 's morals. This entry 
was made on March 13, 1601, the refer- 
ence being to player Shakspere. 

No wonder that such eminent votaries 
of Shakspere as Stevens, Hallam, Dyce 
and Emerson are disappointed and per- 
plexed, for, while the record concerning 
the life of the player, money-lender, land- 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 115 

owner, play-broker, speculator and liti- 
gant are ample, they disclose nothing of 
a literary character; but the pecuniary 
litigation evidence, growing out of Shak- 
spere's devotion to money-getting in Lon- 
don and Stratford, does unfold his true 
life and character. The records do not 
furnish a single instance of friendship, 
kindness or generosity, but upon the de- 
linquent borrower of money he rigidly 
evoked the law, which gave a generous 
advantage to the creditor, and its vile 
prison to the debtor. 

In 1600 Shakspere brought action 
against John Clayton for seven pounds 
and got judgment in his favor. He sued 
Philip Rogers, a neighbor in Stratford 
Court, for one pound, fifteen shillings 
and six pence due for malt sold, and two 
shillings loaned. In August, 1608, Shak- 
spere prosecuted John Addenbroke to re- 
cover a debt of six pounds. He prose- 
cuted this last suit for a couple of years 
until he got the defendant into prison. 
The prisoner was bailed out by Horneby. 



116 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

Addenbroke, running away, escaped from 
the clutches of his tormentor, who then 
bore down on his security, Horneby. 

"The pursuit of an impoverished man 
"for the sake of imprisoning him, and 
"■depriving him both of the power of pay- 
"ing his debts and supporting his family, 
"grate upon our feelings," says Bichard 
Grant White, "and," adds this eminent 
Shakspearean, "we hunger and we receive 
"these husks, we open our mouths for 
"food and we break our teeth against 
"these stones." We may be sure that 
there was left in the impoverished home 
of John Addenbroke little more palatable 
than husks and stones, when the father 
fled to escape from the clutches of his in- 
sistent creditor, William Shakspere of 
Stratford. 

The paltry suits he brought to recover 
debts do not tend to disclose this Shak- 
spere 's "radiant temperament," or fit 
him to receive the adjective, "gentle," 
except in contumely for his claim to 
gentility. It is not known that Shakspere 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 117 

ever gave hospitality to the necessities of 
the poor of his native shire, for whom, it 
appears, there heat no pulse of tender- 
ness. A man of scanty sensibilities he 
must have been. The poor working peo- 
ple of Stratford, we may he sure, shed 
no tear at this Shakspere's departure 
from the world. 

We do not envy the man, who can re- 
gard these harsh pecuniary practices in 
this Shakspere, as commendable traits of 
his worldly wisdom, for he was shrewd 
in money matters, and could have in- 
vested his money in London and Strat- 
ford so as not to have brought sorrow 
and distress upon his poor neighbors. 
These matters are small in themselves, 
but they suggest a good deal, for they 
bear witness to sorrow-stricken mothers, 
hungry children and fathers in loathsome 
prisons, powerless to provide food, 
warmth and light for the home. The 
diary, or note-book, of Philip Henslowe, 
the theatrical manager and play-broker, 
shows that Henslowe was himself a very 



118 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

penurious and grasping man, who, taking 
advantage of starving play-makers' neces- 
sities, became very wealthy. William 
Shakspere. of Stratford-on-Avon, as a 
theatrical manager, became rich also, but 
his note-book has not been preserved, so 
nothing is known of his business methods 
in dealing with the poor play-makers ; but 
the literary antiquarians, by ramsacking 
corporations' records and other public 
archives, have proven that Shakspere 
was very much such a man as the old 
pawnbroker and play-broker, Philip 
Henslowe, of a rival house. 

The biographers should record these 
facts, and not strive to shun them, for the 
literary antiquaries have unearthed and 
brought them forward, and they tell the 
true story of Shakspere 's life, though we 
do not linger lovingly over them, for, like 
Hallam, "we as little feel the power of 
" identifying the young man who came up 
"from Stratford, was afterward an in- 
" different player in a London theatre, 
"and retired to his native place in middle 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 119 

"life, with the author of 'Macbeth 5 and 

"'Lear,' ' for the Stratford records are 
as barren of literary matter as the lodg- 
ings in Silver street, London. Not a 
crumb for the literary biographer in 
either place! 

Professor Wallace has added another 
non-literary document in the matter of 
Shakspere's deposition in the case of Bel- 
lot vs. Mount joy, which he discovered in 
the public record office, but it in no way 
contributes to a literary biography. The 
truth is that, with all their industry, the 
antiquarians have in this regard not 
brought to light a single proven fact to 
sustain the claim that this Shakespere 
was either the author of poems or plays. 
This bit of new knowledge gives us a 
glimpse of this William Shakspere as an 
evasive witness, having a conveniently 
short memory. These depositions dis- 
close his intermediation in the matter of 
making two hearts happy, but not the 
faintest glimpse of the author of poems 
or plays. When the claim of authorship 



120 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

is challenged, new particulars of the life 
of Shakspere, such as this and others that 
have been unearthed by antiquarians, 
whether in the public record office or cor- 
poration archives, are alike worthless so 
far as establishing the poet Shakspere 's 
identity. They fail to confirm the iden- 
tity of the actor Shakspere with the 
author of the plays and poems that are 
associated with his name. There are no 
family traditions, no books, manuscripts, 
or letters, addressed to him, or by him, 
to poet, peer or peasant. The credible 
evidence supplied by contemporaneous, or 
antiquarian, research do not identify the 
player and landowner with the author of 
" Hamlet," "Lear" and "Othello." 

Our belief in the pseudonymity of the 
author of the poems and plays, called 
Shakespeare, is strengthened by the ab- 
sence of verse commemorative of concur- 
rent events, such as the strivings of his 
boldest countrymen in the great Eliza- 
bethan age. There is, from his pen, 
neither word of cheer, nor sympathy, with 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 121 

the daring and suffering warriors and ad- 
venturers of that time, although his eon- 
temporaries versified eulogies to the 
heroes of those days for their stirring 
deeds. There is, in the poems and plays, 
no elegiac lay in memory of Elizabeth, 
"the glorious daughter of the illustrious 
"Henry," as Robert Greene calls her, nor 
is there one line of mourning verse at the 
death of Prince Henry, the noblest among 
the children of the king*, by a writer who 
was always a strenuous and consistent 
supporter of prerogative against the con- 
ception of freedom. This is another evi- 
dence of the secrecy maintained as to the 
authorship of the poems and plays. We 
cannot discover a single laudatory poem 
or commendatory verse, or a line of praise 
of any publication, or writer of his time. 
All this is in contrast with his contem- 
poraries, whose personalities are identifi- 
able with their literary work, and, so 
liberal of commendation were they, that 
they literally showered commendatory 
verses on literary works of merit, or those 



122 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

thought to have merit. Of these, thirty- 
five were bestowed oil Fletcher, a score 
or more on Beaumont, Chapman and 
Ford, while Massinger received nineteen. 
Ben Jonson's published works contain 
thirty-seven pieces of commendation. His 
Roman tragedy, "Sejanus," was acclaim- 
ed by ten contemporary poets. In praise 
of his comedy, "Volpone," There are 
seven poems. The versified compliments 
bestowed on him by his fellow craftsmen 
embrace many of the most celebrated 
names antecedent to his death, which oc- 
curred in 1637. Early in 1638 a collection 
of some thirty elegies were published un- 
der the title of "Jonsonus Virbius," or 
"The Memory of Ben Jonson," in which 
nearly all the leading poets of the day, 
except Milton, took part, 

It must appear strange to the votaries 
of Shakspere that Jonson should have re- 
ceived so many crowns of mourning 
verse, while for Shakspere of Stratford- 
on- Avon, the reputed author of " Ham- 
let, " "Lear" and "Macbeth," there 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 123 

Availed no dirge, Xot a single commen- 
datory verse was bestowed by a contem- 
porary poet antecedent to his death, nor 
was a single elegaic poem written of Mm 
in the year of his death, 1616. Already 
in that fatal year there had been mourn- 
ing for Francis Beaumont, who received 
immediate posthumous honors by many 
poets, in memorial odes, sighing forth the 
requiem to his name in mournful elegy. 

Eight and forty days after the death of 
Francis Beaumont, all that was mortal of 
William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon 
was buried in the chancel of his parish 
church, in which, as part owner of the 
tithes and consequently one of the lay 
rectors, he had the right of interment. 
Over the spot where his body was laid, 
there was placed a slab with the inscrip- 
tion imprecating a curse on the man who 
should disturb his bones, 

"Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare 
"To digg the dust enclosed here 
"Bless be ye man yt spares this stown 
"And curst be he yt moves my bones.' 9 



124 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

This rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph 
has given much trouble to writers on the 
subject of Shakespeare. The usual ex- 
planation of the threat is given that the 
Puritans thought that the church had 
been profaned by the ashes of an actor. 
These ignorant words could not have 
been written as a deterrent to the Puri- 
tans, for they did not belong to the 
ignorant section of the population, but to 
the middle class, nor would they have 
been deterred from invading Shakspere's 
tomb by the superstitious fear of a threat 
contained in doggerel verse cut on the 
tomb. There was not the least danger 
that the actor's grave would be violated 
by the Puritans, for Dr. John Hall, Shak- 
spere's son-in-law, was a Puritan. If he 
had had this warning epitaph cut on the 
tomb it would have been written in 
scholarly English. The doggerel lines, 
rude as they are, satisfied, doubtless, the 
widow and daughters, themselves ignor- 
ant. The most pleasing epitaph, it seems 
to us, would have been one expressing a 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 125 

known wish of their "dear departed" in 
words, when read by others, that would 
best suit their understandings, for the 
Shakspere family were uncultured. They 
could not read the stupid epitaph on his 
tomb, and so their hearts were not sad- 
dened as they gazed upon an inscription 
of barbaric rudeness. 

Some slight circumstance may have 
given rise to William Hall's conjecture, 
during his visit to Stratford, in 1694, that 
Shakspere authored his own epitaph, and 
that these lines were written to suit the 
capacity of clerks and sextons, who, ac- 
cording to Hall, in course of time would 
have removed Shakspere 's dust to the 
bone house. This is not improbable from 
the point of view taken by those who be- 
lieve that Shakspere of Stratford wrote 
the doggerel epigram on John Combe, 
money lender, and the vituperative ballad 
abusing the gentleman whose park he 
(Shakspere) robbed, for the three com- 
positions are of the same grade of 
ignorant nonsense. But we do know that 



126 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

had the author of " Hamlet" written his 
own epitaph, it would have been as death- 
less as the one over the Countess of Pem- 
broke : 

"Underneath this sable hearst 
"Lies the subject of all verse 
"Sidney's sister— Pembroke's mother 
"Death, ere thou hast slain another 
"Learned and fair and good as she 
"Time shall throw a dart at thee." 

It should be borne in mind that clerks 
and sextons were not the only ignorant 
people in and about Stratford. There 
were some that had a grievance, or 
thought they had, which parish clerks 
and sextons had not. We have reference 
to the poor debtors, who regarded Shak- 
spere of Stratford as a grasping usurer, 
hard upon poor people in his power, so 
the curse inscribed slab was placed over 
Shakspere's grave as a shield to protect 
his ashes from those who would not hesi- 
tate to invade the tomb of one whose 
memory had become hateful to them. If 
in pressing his claim the money lender 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 127 

elects to be a tormentor, Ms name will be 
execrated while living and a hateful 
memory when dead. 

One thing is evidenced by the maledic- 
tory epitaph; that the one who wrote it 
was afraid the tomb might he violated hy 
the removal of the hones to the charnal 
house. TTho were they that would most 
likely invade Shakspere 's tomb? Ob- 
viously those, we repeat, who regarded 
him as a hard-hearted man, who pressed 
poor debtors with all the rigor of the law 
to enforce the payment of petty sums; 
the man who had shown himself supremely 
selfish in an attempt to enclose the Strat- 
ford common field ; the man who would 
be made u a gentleman" by misrepresen- 
tation, fraud and falsehood. The fore- 
going facts, and the legal and municipal 
evidence bound up in dusty records, a 
bogus coat-of-arms, and a rude epitaph, 
tell the true story of the life of William 
Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon. 

There is no record of any pretended 
living likeness of Shakspere better rep- 



128 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

resenting him than the Stratford bust. 
This bust is erected on the north side of 
the chancel of Holy Trinity Church at 
Stratford-oil- Avon. On the floor of the 
chancel in front of the monument are the 
graves of Shakspere and his family. We 
have no means of ascertaining when the 
monument and bust were erected. The 
first folio edition of his reputed works 
was published in 1623. It contained 
words from Leonard Diggs prefatory 
lines "and time dissolves thy Stratford 
moniment," monument being used inter- 
changeably with tomb; but these words 
do not prove that the bust was set up be- 
fore 1623. His image was rudely cut, 
sensual and clownish in abearance. 

There is not a tittle of evidence adduced 
to show that a knowledge of Shakspere 's 
putative authorship of poems and plays 
was current at Stratford when the first 
folio edition of his reputed works was 
published in 1623. The records attest 
that Shakspere 's fame reputatively as 
writer is posterior to this event. How 



AND ROBERT GREENE 129 

strange it must seem to those who claim 
for Shakspere an established reputation 
as poet and dramatist of repute anterior 
to the first folio edition in 1623, that .Dr. 
Hall, himself an author and most ad- 
vantaged of all the heirs by Shakspere 's 
death, should fail to mention his father- 
in-law in his "cure-hook" or observa- 
tions ! The earliest dated cure is 1617, the 
year following Shakspere 's death, but 
there are undated ones. In "Ohs. XIX." 
Hall mentions without date an illness of 
his wife, Mrs. Hall; and we find him 
making a note long afterwards in refer- 
ence to his only daughter, Elizabeth, who 
was saved by her father's skill and 
patience. "Thus was she delivered from 
"death and deadly diseases and was well 
"for many years." The illness of Dray- 
ton is recorded without date in "Obs. 
XXIL," with its wee bit of a literary 
biography, and he is referred to as "Mr. 
Drayton, an excellent poet." Had Shak- 
spere received a like mention as a poet or 
writer bv one who knew him so intimately, 



130 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

what a delicious morsel it would have 
been to all those who have followed the 
literary antiquarian through the dreary 
barren waste of Shakespearean research. 
We have found nothing but husks, and 
these, eulogists of Shakespeare— Hallani, 
Stevens and Emerson— refused to crunch! 
For nearly three centuries the Stratford 
archives have contained all matters con- 
cerning Sliakspere's life and character, 
and have given us full knowledge of the 
man; nothing has been lost; but of his 
alleged literary life, there is not a crumb, 
no family traditions, no books, no manu- 
scripts, no letters, no commendatory 
verses, plays, masques or anthology. 

The biographers of Shakespeare have 
none of the material out of which poets 
and dramatists are made, but only those 
facts which are congruous with money 
lenders, land speculators, play-brokers 
and actors; also, a good assortment of 
apocryphal stores and gossipy yarns 
which have become traditional currency. 
According to Mark Twain there is some- 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 131 

tiling more. He says, "When we find a 
" vague file of chipmunk tracks stringing 
"through the dusk of Stratford village 
"we know that Hercules has been 
"along. " Again he proceeds, "The bust, 
"too, there in the Stratford church, the 
"precious bust, the calm bust with a dandy 
"mustache, and the putty face unseamed 
"with care— that face which has looked, 
"passionlessly down upon the awed pil- 
"grim for a hundred and fifty years, and 
"will look down upon the awed pilgrim 
"three hundred more with the deep, deep, 
"deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of 
"a bladder." 

Not having found the slightest trace of 
Shakespeare in 1592 as writer of plays, 
or as adapter or elaborator of other men's 
work, his advent into literature must 
have been at a later date, if at all. In 
1593 "Venus and Adonis" appeared in 
print with a dedication to Lord South- 
ampton, and signed " William Shake- 
speare." In 1594 appeared another poem, 
"Luereee, " also with a dedication to Lord 



132 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

Southampton. The poems bore no name 
of an author on the title page. Here is 
literary tangibility, but does it establish 
the identity of their author, or attest the 
responsibility of the young Stratford man 
for the poems which were published un- 
der the name of Shakespeare? This was 
the first mention of the now famous 
name ? Was it a pseudonym, or was it 
the true name of the author of the poem 6 ? 
The enthusiastic reception of the poems 
awakens a suspicion when we learn that 
their popularity was due to a belief in 
their lasciviency; and that the dedicatee 
was the rakish Henry x Worthesley, third 
Earle of Southampton ; and, furthermore, 
that the name of the dedicator, "Shake- 
speare," was one of a class of nicknames 
which in 1593 still retained in some meas- 
ure that which was derisive in them. In 
1487 a student at Oxford changed his 
own name of " Shakespeare" into " Saun- 
ders," because he considered it too expres- 
sive and distinctive of rough manners, 
and significant of degradation, and as 



AXD ROBERT GREENE 133 

such was unwilling to aid in its heredi- 
tary transmission, when all that is de- 
risive in the name Shakspere remained 
fixed and fossilized in the old meaning. 
In those unlettered times, lascivious per- 
sons were sometimes branded, so to speak, 
with the nickname " Shakspere." Pri- 
marily, the name has no militant signifi- 
cation. There is no such personal name 
in any known list of British surnames. 
They are of the parvenu class without 
ancestry. 

Mr. Sidney Lee admits that the Earle 
of Southampton is the only patron of 
Shakspere that is known to biographical 
research (p. 126). By what fact, or 
facts, may we ask, is the authenticity of 
the Earl's friendship or patronage at- 
tested? Southampton was the standing 
patron of all the poets, the stock-dedi- 
catee of those days. It was the fashion 
of the times to pester him with dedica- 
tions by poets grave and gay. They were 
after those five or six pounds, which cus- 
tom constrained his Lordship to yield for 



134 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

having Ms name enshrined in poet's lines. 
All the poets of that age were dependents, 
and there is, with few exceptions, the 
same display of pharisaic sycophancy, 
greediness, and on the part of dedicatee 
an inordinate desire for adulation. Every 
student of Elizabethan literature and 
history should know that the Southamp- 
ton-Shakspere friendship cannot he 
traced biographically. The Earl of 
Southampton was a voluminous corre- 
spondent, but did not bear witness to his 
friendship for Shakspere. A scrutinous 
inspection of Southampton's papers con- 
tained in the archives of his family, de- 
scendants and contemporaries, yields 
nothing in support of the contention that 
Southampton's friendship, or patronage, 
is known to biographical research, and it 
is as attestative as that other apocryphal 
story preserved by Rowe " which is fast 
disappearing from Shakespearean bio- 
graphy. ' ' 

" There is one instance so singular in 
"its munificence that if we had not been 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 135 

'assured that the story was handed down 
4 by Sir William Davenant, who was 

'probably very well acquainted with his 
'affairs, we should not venture to have 
'inserted that my Lord Southampton at 
4 one time gave him (Shakspere) a thous- 
and pounds, to enable him to go through 
'with a purchase which he heard he had 
4 a mind to." (Davenant was the man 
who gave out that he was the natural son 
of Shakspere). A present of a thousand 
pounds which equals at least twenty-five 
thousand dollars to-day ! The magnitude 
of the gift discredits the story neverthe- 
less, the startled Bowe, is the first to 
make it current, but does not give his 
readers the ground for his assurance. Be 
it what it may, he could hardly satisfy 
the modern reader that this man, a son, 
who insinuatingly defiles the name and 
fair fame of his own mother, is a credi- 
ble witness, or that such a man is 44 fit for 
wolf bait." What purchase did Shaks- 
pere k 'go through with?" Xot Xew Place 
in 1597, for the purchase money was only 



136 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

sixty pounds. Neither could it have been 
the Stratford estate in 1602, for at that 
time Southampton was a prisoner in the 
Tower. In fact, the whole sum expended 
by Shakspere did not amount to a thous- 
and pounds in all. The truth is, the so- 
cial Rules of Tudor and Jacobin times 
did not permit peer and peasant to live 
on terms of mutual good feeling. Almost 
all the poets in hope of gain, penned 
adulatory sonnets in praise of Lord 
Southampton. In those times they had a 
summary way of dealing with humble 
citizens. Jonson, Chapman and Marston, 
were imprisoned for having displeased 
the king by a jest in "Eastward Ho,"— 
"A nobleman to vindicate rank brought 
"an action in the star-chamber against a 
"person, who had orally addressed him 
"as ' Goodman Morley.'" The literati 
of those days found in scholastic 
learning, neither potency, nor prom- 
ise, to abrogate class distinctions by 
giving* a passport to high attainment 
in literature, poetry and philosophy. 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 137 

Ben Jonson says, "The time was when 
"men were had in price for learn- 

"ing, now letters only make men vile. He 
"is nphraidingly called a poet as if it 
"were a contemptible nickname." 

Mr. Lee tells us, that the state papers 
and business correspondence of South- 
ampton were enlivened by references to 
his literary interest and his sympathy 
with the birth of English Drama. (P. 
316.). "However. Mr. Lee has extracted 
"no reference to Shakspere from the 
c ' paper. ' ' Southampton ? s zest for the 
theatre is based on the statement 
contained in the "Sidney Papers' 3 
that he and his friend Lord Rut- 
land "come not to court but pass 
"away the time merely in going to plays 
"every day." When a new library for 
his old college. St. Johns, was in course 
of construction. Southampton collected 
books to the value of three hundred and 
sixty pounds wherewith to furnish it. 
Southampton's literary tastes and sym- 
pathy with the drama cannot he drawn 



138 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

from his gift to the library, for it con- 
sisted largely of legends of the saints and 
mediaeval chronicles. When and where 
did William Shakspere acknowledge his 
obligations to the only patron of the 
player? According to Mr. Lee, who h 
known to biographical research, not one 
of the Shakespearean plays was dedi- 
cated to Southampton. The name 
" Shakspere" is conspicuously absent 
from among the distinguished writers of 
his clay, who in panegyrical speech and 
song acclaimed Southampton's release 
from prison in 1602. 

Francis Meres, a pedantic schoolmas- 
ter and Divinity student, had his "Pal- 
ladia Tamia" registered September 7, 
1598, and published shortly after. Meres 
in his "Tamia" writes of the mellifluous 
and honey-tonguecl Shakespeare, and his 
" Venus and Adonis," and his "Lucrece," 
and his sugared sonnets to his friends, 
and enumerates twelve plays— though at 
the time three only had been published 
with his name. Like others of his con- 



AND ROBERT GREENE 139 

temporaries, Meres writes tritely of the 
honey-tongued, the honey sweet and the 
sugared. With him, everything written 
is mellifluent, but he says nothing of the 
man. In fact, no contemporary left on 
record any definite impression of Shakes- 
peare's personal character. Meres as- 
serted that Ben Jonson was one of our 
best poets for tragedy, when at that time 
(1598) Jonson had not written a single 
tragedy, and but one comedy. 

Before, we transcribe, in part, "Wits 
"Treasury" by Francis Meres, we ask 
the readers' pardon for this abuse of their 
patience, for Meres merely repeats names 
of Greek, Latin and modern play-makers. 
"As these tragic poets flourished in 
"Greece— Aeschylus, Euripides" (in all 
seventeen are named and these among the 
Latin, Accius, M. Attilus, Seneca and 
several others). "So these are our best 
"for tragedy; the Lord Buckhurst, Dr. 
"Leg of Cambridge, Dr. Eds of Oxford, 
"Master Edward Ferris— the author of 
"the 'Merriour for Magistrates/— Mar- 



140 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"lowe, Peele, Watson, Kyd, Shakespeare, 
" Drayton, Chapman, Decker and Benja- 
"min Jonson. The best poets for com- 
"edy"— (Meres proceeds with his enum- 
eration, naming sixteen Greeks and ten 
Latins, twenty-six in all.) "So the best 
"for comedy amongst ns be Edward, Earl 
"of Oxford; Dr. Lager of Oxford; Mas- 
ter Rowley; Master Edwards: eloquent 
"and wittie John Lilly; Lodge; Gas- 
' ' coyne ; Greene ; Shakespeare ; Thomas 
' ' Nash ; Thomas Hey wood ; Anthony 
"Mnnday. Our best plotters: Chapman, 
"Porter, Wilson, Hathaway and Henry 
"Chettle." 

Meres does not seem to have considered 
it necessary to read before reviewing. 
Had he done so he would not have placed 
the name of Lord Buckhurst first in his 
list, giving primacy to this mediocrist, and 
the author of "Romeo and Juliet," who- 
ever he was, ninth in his list of dramatic 
poets which he considered best among the 
English for tragedy; nor, would he have 
named for second place on the list Dr. 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 141 

Leg of Cambridge, instead of the author 
of "The Jew of Malta" (Marlowe). 
What has Dr. Eds of Oxford, whose name 
stands third in the Meres list, written 
that he should hare been mentioned in the 
same connection with the author of "The 
"White Devil" (Webster) or the author 
of that classic "The Conspiracy/' and 
"The Tragedy of Charles Duke of By- 
"ron" (Chapman) ? Why this com- 
mingling of such insignificant writers as 
Edward, Earl of Oxford, Lord Buck- 
hurst, Drs. Lager and Leg, with the giant 
brotherhood? The fact is, so far as at- 
testing the responsibility of anybody or 
anything, the Meres averments are as 
worthless as "a musty nut." What was 
said of John Anbury is also true of Fran- 
cis Meres, "His brain was like a hasty 
"pudding whose memory and judgment 
"and fancy were all stirred together." 
Yet this is the writer that many Shakes- 
pearean commentators confidently appeal 
to, in part, and. whose testimony, in part, 
they, with equal unanimity impeach. 



142 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

Tlie slight mention of Shakespeare by 
the " judicious Webster/ 5 as Hazlet calls 
him, comprehends no more than that 
Shakspere was one of the hack writers of 
the day: "detraction is the sworn friend 
"to ignorance." For mine own part I 
have ever truly cherished "my good opin- 
ion of other men's worthy labours, 
'especially of that full and heightened 
'style of Master Chapman, the laboured 
'and understanding works of Master 
'Jonson, the no less worthy composures 
' of the both worthily excellent Master 
4 Beaumont and Fletcher, and lastly 
' (without wrong last to be named) the 
' right happy and copious industry of 
'Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker 
' and Master Heywood/' 

These words written by the third great- 
est of English tragic poets are very sig- 
nificant, for Webster wrote for the thea- 
tre to which Shakspere, the player and 
play-broker, belonged ; yet industry is the 
only distinguishing mark in Shakspere 
which he must share with Dekker, and 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 143 

Heywood, hack writers for the stage. 
Dekker's many plays attest his copious 
industry, when we remember that this 
writer spent three years in prison, and 
Heywood's industry cannot be doubted 
for he claimed to have had a hand and 
main finger in two hundred twenty plays. 
Copious industry signifies to the reader 
the existence of an author not utterly 
unknown, it is true, but it fails to identify 
him as the author of the immortal plays. 
What shall we say then ? Were the works 
called Shakespeare's but little known? 
Shakspere's biographers say that they 
were the talk of the town. If that is true, 
then the writer who was commended for 
industry was not regarded by Webster as 
the author of " Hamlet," "Lear," and 
"Macbeth," for Shakespeare's distinctive 
characteristics are not individualized 
from those of Dekker and Heywood, 
while those of Chapman, Jonson, Beau- 
mont and Fletcher are. In the last four 
named is perfect interlacement of per- 



144 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

sonality with authorship, but not so in 
Shakespeare. 

John Webster's judgment of his fellow 
craftsman was just, "I have ever truly 
"cherished my good opinion of other 
"men's worthy labours." Webster never 
conceals or misrepresents the truth by 
giving evasive, or equivocating, evidence. 
He reveals the judicial trait of his char- 
acter in placing Chapman first among 
the poets then living, assuming that the 
name Shakespeare was used by printers 
and publishers, if not by writers, as an 
impersonal name, masking the name of a 
true poet. Sidney, Marlowe and Spencer 
had then descended to the tomb. 

George Chapman's name has not re- 
ceived due prominence in the modern 
hand-books of English literature, but he 
was a bright torch and numbered by his 
own generation, among the greatest of its 
poets. He, whom Webster calls the 
"Prince's Sweet Homer" and "My 
"Friend," was not unduly honored by the 
"full and heightened style" which Web- 



AND ROBERT GREENE 145 

ster makes characteristic of him. "Our 
"Homer-Luean," as lie was gracefully 

termed by Daniel, is a poet much admired 
by great men. Edmund Waller never 
could read Chapman's Homer without a 
degree of transport. Barry is reputed to 
have said that when he went into the 
street after reading it, men seemed ten 
feet high; Coleridge declares Chapman's 
version of the Odyssey to he as truly an 
original poem as the "Faerie Queene." 
He also declares that Chapman in his 
moral heroic verse stands above Ben Jon- 
son. "There is more dignity, more lustre, 
"and equal strength." 

Translation was in those times a new 
force in literature. By the indomitable 
force and fire of genius Chapman has 
made Homer himself speak English by 
translating the genius, and by having 
chosen that which prefers the spirit to 
the letter. It is in his translation that 
the "Iliad" is best read as an English 
book. Out of it there comes a whiff: of 
the breath of Homer. It is as massive 



146 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

and majestic as Homer himself would 
have written in the land of the virgin 
queen. "He has added/' says Swinburne, 
"a monument to the temple which con- 
stains the glories of his native language, 
"the godlike images, and the costly relics 
"of the past." "The earnestness and 
"passion," says Charles Lamb, "which 
"he has put into every part of these po- 
"ems would be incredible to a reader of 
"mere modern translations. His almost 
"Greek zeal for the honor of his heroes 
"is only paralleled by that fierce spirit of 
"Hebrew bigotry with which Milton, as 
"if personating one of the zealots of the 
"old law, clothed himself when he sat 
"down to paint the acts of Samson 
"against the uncircumcisecl. " It was the 
reflected Hellenic radiance of the grand 
old Chapman version to the lifted eyes of 
Keats flooded with the "light which 
"never was on sea or shore." This 
younger poet sang : 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 147 

44 Much have I traveled in the realms of 

gold, 
"And many goodly states and kingdoms 

seen, 
"Round many western islands have I 

been, 
" Which hards in fealty to Apollo hold; 
"Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
''That deep-browed Homer ruled as his 

demesne 
"Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
"Till I heard Chapman speak out loud 

and hold." 

The preface to Webster's tragedy, 
"The White Devil," which contains a 
slight mention of Shakespeare, was 
printed in 1612. after all the immortal 
plays were written and their reputed au- 
thor had returned to Stratford, probably 
in 1611, in his forty-seventh year, where 
he lived idly for five years before his 
death. John Webster possessed a crit- 
ical faculty and an independent judg- 
ment, but the way he makes mention of 
Shakespeare shows that he knew nothing 



148 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

about the individual man, or the work, 
called Shakespeare. 

The generous reference to "The la- 
boured and understanding works of 
"Master Jonson" gives a clear idea of the 
main characteristics of the work of Jon- 
son, who, not having reached the fruition 
of his renown in 1611, but in the after 
time, came into Dry den's view as "The 
"greatest man of the last age, the most 
"learned and judicious writer any thea- 
tre ever had." John Webster writes of 
"the no less worthy composures of Beau- 
"mont and Fletcher" then in the morn- 
ing of life. They present an admirable 
model for purity of vocabulary and sim- 
plicity of expression and were of "loud- 
"est fame." "Two of Beaumont's and 
"Fletcher's plays were acted to one of 
"Shakespeare's, or Ben Jonson's," in 
Dry den's time. 

There is strong presumptive proof that 
printers and publishers in Elizabethan 
and Jacobin times were in the habit of se- 
lecting names or titles that would best 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 143 

sell their books. The most popular books 
or best sellers they printed were books of 
songs, love-tales, comedies and sonnets of 
the amorous, scented kind, and it mat- 
tered not to publishers if the name 
printed on the title-page was a personal 
name, or one impersonal. Title-pages 
were not even presumptive proof of au- 
thorship in the time of Queen Elizabeth 
and King James. The printers chose to 
market their publications under the most 
favorable conditions, and some writers 
chose the incognizable name "Shakes- 
"peare" which had been attached to the 
voluptuous poem " Venus and Adonis." 
This was published by Richard Field, in 
whose name it had been entered in the 
Stationer's Register in 1593. There was 
no name of an author on the title-page, 
but the dedication was to the Earl of 
Southampton and was signed " William 
"Shakespeare." This was the first ap- 
pearance of the name "Shakespeare" in 
literature, being the non-de-plume, doubt- 
less, of the writer who gave this erotic 



150 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

poem to the world— " The first heir of my 
" invention." 

Not finding " Shakespeare" in the an- 
thology of his day, the most natural in- 
ference would he that all those who wrote 
under the name "Shakespeare" wrote in- 
cognito. We know that Marlowe, Beau- 
mont, Greene, Drayton and many writers 
of that age wrote anonymously for the 
Elizabethan stage. Many of the anony- 
mous writings have been retrieved ; much, 
doubtless, remains still to be reclaimed 
from the siftings of what are named 
Early Comedy, Early History, and Pre- 
Shakespearean Group of plays. Mr. 
Spedding had the good fortune to be the 
first to demonstrate the theory of a di- 
vided authorship of "Henry VIII.," to 

reclaim for Fletcher "Wolsev's Farewell 

1/ 

"to all his Greatness." Thirteen out of 
the seventeen scenes of "Henry the 
"Eighth" are attributed by Mr. Lee (P. 
212) to Fletcher. A majority of the best 
critics now agree with Miss Jane Lee, in 
the assignment of the second and third 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 151 

part of Henry VI. to Marlowe, Greene 
and Peele. 

The difficulty of identifying Shakes- 
peare, the author poet, with the young 
man who came up from Stratford, has 
induced Shakespearean scholars to ques- 
tion the unity of authorship. Mr. Swin- 
burne tells us that no scholar believes in 
the single authorship of "Andronieus." 
Mr. Lee admits that Shakespeare drew 
largely on the "Hamlet," which he has 
attributed to Kyd (P. 182). "It is 
" scarcely possible," says Mr. Marshall in 
the "Irving Shakespeare," "to maintain 
"that the play * (Hamlet) ' referred to as 
"well known in 1589, could have been by 
"Shakspere— that is— by the young actor 
"from Stratford. Surely not. TTe see 
"the question of the unity of the author 
"and authorship involves the question of 
"his identity." It is evident that the au- 
thor poet, whoever he was, had, in his 
time of initiation, "purloyned plumes" 
from Marlowe, Kyd and Greene, and, 
when nearing the close of his literary 



152 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

career, according to Prof. A. H. Thorn* 
dike, lie was a close imitator of John 
Fletcher— not so much an innovator as an 
adapter. 

What do we know of Shakespeare, the 
author poet, " The Man in a Mask?" We 
know nothing, absolutely nothing. No 
reputed play by Shakespeare was pub- 
lished before 1597, and none bore the 
name Shakespeare on the title page till 
1598. Lodge, in his prose satire "Wits 
"Misery," dated 1596, enumerates the 
wits of the time. Shakspere is not men- 
tioned. Dr. Peter Heylys was born in 
1600, and died in 1662, thus being sixteen 
years old when Shakspere, the player 
died. In reckoning up the famous dra- 
matic poets of England he omits Shaks- 
pere. Ben Jonson, in the catalogue of 
writers, also omits Shakspere, and at a 
later date, writing on the instruction of 
youth and the best authors, he forgets all 
about Shakspere. Philip Henslow, the 
old play-broker, also in writing his note- 
book during the twelve years beginning 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 153 

in February, 1591, does not even mention 
Shakspere. Milton's poem on Shakes- 
peare (1630) was not published in his 
works in 1645. This epitaph was prefixed 
to the folio edition of Shakespeare 
(1632), but without Milton's name. It is 
the first of his reputed poems that was 
published. Its pedigree was not at all 
satisfactory. Milton, having been misled 
by Ben Jonson's lines on Shakespeare, 
"And though thou hadst small Latin and 
"less Greek," writes of 

"Sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
Warbles his native woodnotes wild." 

Milton's acquaintance with Shakes- 
peare verse must have been very meager, 
for had he read "Venus and Adonis," so 
classic and formal, he would agree with 
Walter Savage Lander that "No poet was 
"ever less a warbler of woodnotes wild." 
It was never said in the original authori- 
ties that a Shakespeare play, or one by 
Shakspere, was played between 1594 and 
1614. There were published in quarto 



154 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

twenty- three plays in Shakespeare 's 
name— twelve of which are not now ac- 
cepted—and nine without his name. The 
folio (1623) is the sole original authority 
for seventeen plays, but five writers— 
four of them very inferior men— refer to 
Shakespeare, antecedent to the folio of 
1623. 

Search as we may, we fail to find the 
play-actor in affiliation with poets or 
scholars. How unlike the literary men 
of that age; for instance, George Chap- 
man, who had been called the " blank of 
"his age," and not without reason for, in 
all that pertains to the poet's personal 
history, absolutely nothing is known in 
regard to his family, and very little of his 
own private life. Much, however, is 
known concerning Chapman's personal 
authorship of poems and plays for the 
list of passages extracted from his poems 
in "England's Parnassus" or the "Choic- 
est Flowers of Our Modern Poets" con- 
tains no less than eighty-one. At the time 
of this publication (1600), he had pub- 



AND ROBERT GREEXE 155 

lisliecl but two plays and three poems. 
"The proud full sail of his great verse" 
(Chapman's Homer) had not at this time 
been unfurled. 

At the time, this first English anthol- 
ogy was compiled and published, thirteen 
of the Shakespeare plays and two poems 
had been issued. Xevertheless Shakes- 
peare does not figure in the anthology of 
his day. "Why? The play-actor, Wil- 
liam Shakspere, in his life time was not 
publicly credited with the personal au- 
thorship of the plays and poems called 
Shakespeare's, except possibly by three 
or four poeticules, Bomfield, Freeman, 
Meres, and Weaver, who followed each 
other in the iteration and reiteration of 
the same insipid and affected compli- 
ments, not one of them implying a per- 
sonal acquaintance with the author. Some 
few persons may have believed that tlie 
player and play-wright were one and the 
same person, and were deceived into so 
believing. This much we do know, that 
the player Shakspere never openly sane- 



156 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

tioned the identification, although he may 
have been accessory to the deception. It 
should be borne in mind also that no poet 
was remembered in Shakspere's will, as 
were the actors. 

Many writers of that age were com- 
munistic in the use of the name ' ' Shakes- 
"peare" as a descriptive title, very much 
like the Italians' pantomime called "Sil- 
"verspear," standing for the collocuted 
works of not one, but several play- 
makers. Sir Thomas Brown complained 
that his name was being used to float 
books that he never wrote. In the list be- 
fore us there are forty-nine plays which 
were published with Shakespeare's name. 
Doubtless there were many others; not 
one in fifty of the dramas of this period, 
according to Hallowell-Philips, having 
descended to modern times. Many writ- 
ers of that age wrote anonymously and 
pseudonymously. Edmund Spencer, au- 
thor of "The Shepherd's Calendar" re- 
mained incognito for seven years. Eight 
3 7 ears after this work appeared George 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 157 

Whitstone ascribed it to Philip Sidney 
and a cotemporary writer, mistaking 
Spencer's masking name for the author 
of the works. Spencer committed "The 
Faerie Queen" to the press after nine 
years. Only four of Beaumont and 
Fletcher's plays were published in 
Fletcher's lifetime and none of them bore 
Beaumont's name. Fletcher survived 
his partner nine years. Robert Burton, 
author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy, " 
maintained his incognito for a time, he 
avers, because it gave him greater free- 
dom. Jean Baptiste Popuelin preferred 
to be known as Moliere. Francais-Marie 
Aronet won enduring fame as Voltaire. 
Sir Walter Scott maintained his incog- 
nito as the great unknown for years like 
"Junius," "whose secret was intrusted to 
"no one and was never to be revealed." 
Sir Walter Scott preserved his secret un- 
til driven to the brink of financial de- 
struction. Drayton also had written 
under the pseudonym of Rowland. Who 
can doubt that the author of "Hamlet," 



158 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

"Lear" and "Macbeth," chose to sheath 
his private life and personality as a man 
of letters in an impenetrable incognito— 
"the nothingness of a name." 

Of the thirty-seven plays assigned by 
the folio of 1623, not one had received the 
acknowledgment of their reputed au- 
thor (Shakespeare). Not a single line in 
verse or prose assented to for comparison 
and identification, and in the absence of 
credible evidence of his authorship of 
certain poems, there can be no authorita- 
tive sanction of the assignment. 

No person writing on the subject of 
Shakespeare can write a literary life of 
the individual man, for player Shakspere 
of Stratforcl-on-Avon does not offer a 
single point of correspondence to the ac- 
tivities of a literary man or scholar. The 
fantastical critics profess to read the 
story of the author's life in his works. 
This is an absurdity, for dramatic art is 
mainly character creation and cannot be 
made to disclose a knowledge of his pri- 
vate life. The artist is an observer and 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 159 

paints the tiling seen. He, himself, is not 
the thing which he depicts hut he gives 
the character as it is. In the opinion of 
the present writer it is a waste of time to 
attempt to identify Shakspere, the play- 
actor, with any one of the dramatic per- 
sonages contained in the plays called 
Shakespeare's. 

Forty-six years after the death of Wil- 
liam Shakspere of Stratford, Thomas 
Fuller in his "Worthies," published 
posthumously in 1662, wrote: 

"Many were the wit-combats between 
"him and Ben Jonson, which two I be- 
"hold like a Spanish great galleon and an 
' ' English man-of-war. ' ' 

Fuller being born in 1608, was only 
eight years old when player- Shakspere 
died, and but two when he quitted Lon- 
don. If this precocious youngster beheld 
the "wit-combats" of the two, he could 
only have beheld them as he lay "mewl- 
"ing and puking in his nurse's arms." 



VI. 



We have in conclusion decided to fo- 
cus the interest of the reader chiefly in 
the attestation of Ben Jonson for the 
works which were associated with the 
name of William Shakspere of Stratford. 
Ben Jonson presents a contrast to Wil- 
liam Shakspere, in almost every respect, 
so striking as to awaken an irrepressible 
desire to compare the mass of proven 
facts adduced from authentic records. 
Being born in the city of London in the 
early part of 1574, he was ten 3^ears 
younger than Shakspere. He was the son 
of a clergyman. In spite of poverty he 
was educated at Westminster School, 
William Camden being his tutor, to whom 
Jonson refers as " Camden, most reverend 
"head, to whom I owe all that I am— in 
arts all that I ow r e." A recent writer on 
the subject of Jonson says, "No other of 
" Shakspere 's contemporaries has left so 
"splendid and so enthusiastic an eulogy 



AND ROBERT GREENE 161 

"of the master." In this statement all 
must concur, for Jonson is the only 
writer of eminence among Sliakspere 's 
cotemporaries, who has left words of 
praise or censure, or have taken any no- 
tice, either of Sliakspere, or of the works 
which hear his name ; notwithstanding, it 
was the custom among literary men of 
the day to belaud their friends in verse or 
prose, Sliakspere in his lifetime was hon- 
ored with no mark of Ben Jonson 's ad- 
miration. Not a single line of commend- 
atory verse was addressed to Sliakspere 
by Jonson, although this promiscuous 
panegyrist was, with characteristic ex- 
travagance, so indiscriminate in sympa- 
thy or patronage. What shrimp was 
there among hack writers who could not 
gain a panegjrric from his generous 
tongue % 

For five and twenty years Sliakspere 
and Jonson jostled in London streets, yet 
there was no sign or word of recognition 
as they passed each other by. Writers on 
the subject of Jonson and Sliakspere say 



162 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

that we have abundant tradition of their 
close friendship. There are no credible 
traditions. The manufactured traditions, 
so conspicuous in books called, "A Life 
of William Skakspere," are the dreams 
of fancy, fraud and fiction, used to fill 
the lacuna, or gap, in the life of the Strat- 
ford man. 

The proven facts of William Skaks- 
pere 's life are facts unassociated with au- 
thor craft— facts that prove the isolation 
and divorcement of player and poet. The 
proven facts of Ben Jonson's life are 
facts interlacing man and poet. Almost 
every incident in his life reveals his per- 
sonal affection, or bitter dislike, for his 
fellow craftsmen, always ready for a 
quarrel, arrogant, vain, boastful and vul- 
gar. There is much truth in Dekker's 
charge, ' ' 'Tis thy fashion to flirt ink in 
" every man's face and then crawl into 
"his bosom." He had many quarrels 
with Marston, beat him, and wrote his 
"Poetaster on him." He was federated 
in a comedy "(Eastward Ho) ' with 



AND ROBERT GREENE 163 

Chapman, and was sent to prison for li- 
beling the Scottish nobility. Ben Jon- 
son's personality and literary work are 
inseparable. Drunk or sober, few have 
served learning with so much pertinacity, 
and fewer still, have so successfully chal- 
lenged admiration even from literary ri- 
vals, with whom at times he was most bit- 
terly hostile, and at other times, indis- 
putably open-handed and jo rial. 

Ben Jonson had a literary environ- 
ment always for there is perfect inter- 
lacement of man and craft. He became 
one of the most prolific writers of his age 
occupying among the men of his day a 
position of literary supremacy. "In the 
forty years of his literary career he col- 
lected a library so extensive that Gif- 
"ford doubted whether any library in 
"England was so rich in scarce and valu- 
able books. " From the pages of Isaac 
De Israeli we read, "No poet has left be- 
"hind him so many testimonials of per- 
gonal fondness by inscriptions and 
"addresses in the copies of his works 



164 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

" which he presented to his friends. " But 
of all these, as strange as it must seem to 
the votaries of Shakspere, not a single 
copy of Jonson's works is brought for- 
ward to bear witness of his personal re- 
gard and admiration for Shakspere, and 
we may add that there is no testimonial 
by Shakspere of his regard and personal 
fondness for Ben Jonson, although many 
of the literary antiquaries have un- 
earthed in their researches facts or new 
discoveries, which they have brought for- 
ward as new particulars of the life of 
William Shakspere. These, if not incom- 
patible with authorship, are surely di- 
vorcing Shakspere, the actor, from 
Shakespeare, the author poet. They but 
deepen the mystery that surrounds the 
personality of the author of the immortal 
plays— "The shadow of a mighty name." 
At the same time they disclose the true 
character of Shakspere the actor, money- 
lender, land-owner and litigant, which is 
affirmative of John Bright 's opinion 
that "any man who believes that William 



AND ROBERT GREENE 165 

"Shakspere of Stratford wrote 'Hamlet' 
" or 'Lear' is a fool." 

The student reader will perceive that 
Jonson's verse does not agree with his 
prose, and that his u Ode to Shakes- 
"peare," which Dry den called "an inso- 
lent, sparing, and invidious, panegyric," 
was not the final word of comment which 
is contained in Ben Jonson's "Discover- 
ies "—a prose reference in disparage- 
ment of Shakespeare, the writer, while 
laudatory of the man whom he may have 
believed was identifiable with the play- 
wright. We believe he was mistaken in 
so believing. Ben Jonson was vulnerable 
most in his character as a witness. The 
reader must therefore be indulgent if we 
make some remarks upon the credibility 
and competency of this witness. The 
elder writers on the subject of Jonson 
and Shakespeare before Gifford's time 
(1757-1826) were always harping on Ben 
Jonson's jealousy and envy of Shakes- 
peare. Since Gifford's day the antiquary 
has been abroad in the land without hav- 



166 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

ing discovered anything of a literary life 
of Shakespeare. As if by general consent, 
all recent writers on the subject regard 
Jonson's attestation, or his metrical trib- 
ute, to the " memory of mv beloved au- 
thor, Mr. William Shakespeare, "an es- 
sential element in Shakespeare's biog- 
raphy as the title deed of authorship." 
Having made him their star witness, we 
shall hear no more of Jonson's jealousy 
and envy of Shakespeare. 

A final consideration will show how lit- 
tle Ben Jonson is to be relied on "as at- 
testing the responsibility of the Strat- 
"ford player for the works which are 
"associated with his name." There is not 
a word or sentence in all Jonson's writ- 
ings which bear witness to Shakspere as 
a writer of plays or poems anterior to the 
Stratford player's death, as all reference 
to Shakespeare in Jonson's verse and 
prose are posterior to this event. They 
refute each other and discredit the 
writer. "Conversations of Ben Jonson 
"with William Drummond" are of great 



AND ROBERT GREENE 167 

literary and historical value and are im- 
portant too, as bearing on Ben Jonson 's 
competency and creclibleness as a wit- 
ness. The Drummond notes were first 
printed by Mr. David Lang, who dis- 
covered them among the manuscripts of 
Sir Robert Sibbald, a well known anti- 
quarian. " Conversations/' as we have 
it on the evidence of Drummond, is in 
accord with almost every contemporary 
reference to Jonson and internally they 
agree with Ben Jonson 's own " Discover- 
ies." There should be no controversy 
in regard to the justice of the Scottish 
poet's criticism. From- the notes re- 
corded by Drummond we learn, "He 
" (Ben Jonson) is a great lover and 
"praiser of himself, a contemner and 
"scorner of others, especially after drink 
"which is one of the elements in which he 
"liveth." The conversations recorded by 
Drummond took place when Jonson vis- 
ited him at Hawthornden in 1618-19 and 
disclose the fact that "Rare Ben" was a 
vulgar, boastful, tipsy backbiter, who 



168 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

black-guarded many of his fellow crafts- 
men. The last circumstance recorded of 
Ben Jonson is where reference is made to 
his display of self -worship at the expense 
of others. In a letter dated from West- 
minster April 5, 1636, James Howell de- 
scribes a Solem supper given by Jonson 
at which he and Thomas Carew were 
present, when Ben seems to have 
drenched himself with his favorite can- 
ary wine. Howell writes, 

"I was invited yesternight to a Solem 
' supper by B. J. whom you deeply re- 
c member. There was good company, ex- 
cellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial 
4 welcome. One thing intervened which 
' almost spoiled the relish of the rest. 
' Ben began to engross all the discourse 
' to vapour extremely of himself and by 
' vilifying others to magnify his own 
' muse. Thomas Carew buzzed me in the 
Car that Ben had barreled up a great 
' deal of knowledge, yet seems he had not 
' read the 'Ethiques 7 which, among other 
'precepts of morality, forbid self com- 



AND ROBERT GREENE. 169 

"mendation. But for my part I am con- 
sent to dispense with this Roman infirm- 
"ity of B's now that time has snowed 
"upon his pricranium. ' ' 

The reader is not unmindful that the 
language of Ben Jonson is sometimes 
grossly opprobrious, sometimes basely 
adulatory, while his laudatory verses 
on Shakespeare, Silvester, Beaumont 
and other cotemporary writers, are in 
striking contrast by the discrepancy of 
testimony disclosed by his prose works 
and conversations. In the memorial 
verses Jonson tells us Shakespeare stood 
alone— "Alone for the comparison of all 
"that insolent Greece or haughty Rome 
"sent forth or since did from their ashes 
"come." The strictest scrutiny, how- 
ever, into the life and works of Ben Jon- 
son fails to denote his actual acquaint- 
ance with the works of the greatest gen- 
ius of our world. What became of his 
enthusiastic eulogy of Shakespeare, when 
' ' from my house in the Black-Friars this 
"11th day of February, 1607" Ben Jon- 



170 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

son writes his dedication— "Volpone" to 
"The Two Famous Universities/' which 
should have disclosed his close friendship 
with, and admiration for, William 
Shakespeare, for the great dramatist was 
then in the zenith of his power. The dedi- 
cation of "Volpone" was written nine 
years before the death of William Shak- 
spere, the player, when Jonson declared 
"I shall raise the despised head of poetry 
"again and stripping her out of those 
"rotten and base rags wherewith the 
"times have adulterated her form." 

It should be remembered, that at the 
time of this sweeping condemnation of 
what he terms dramatic or stage-poetry, 
thirty-one of the thirty-six of the immor- 
tal Shakespearean plays were then writ- 
ten. All of the very greatest— "Ham- 
let," "Lear," "Macbeth"— were, in Ben 
Jonson 's estimation in 1607, "rotten and 
"base rags." While in 1623 in the 
"Memorial Verses" he tells us that their 
reputed author was the "soul of the 
age." "It is a legal maxim that a witness 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 171 

"who swears for both sides swears for 
" neither, and a rule of common law no 
"less than common sense that his evi- 
dence must he ruled out." Ben Jonson's 
egotism would, of course, preclude a just 
judgment of the work of his fellow 
craftsman. He felt that his own writings 
were immeasurably superior. Did he 
ever read the so-called Shakspere plays 
before he wrote the "Ode to the Memory 
"of my Beloved The Author, Mr. Wil- 
"liam Shakespeare, and What He Hath 
"Left Us" for the syndicate of printers? 
For the affirmative of the proposition 
there is not the faintest presumption of 
probable evidence. Jonson often became 
the generous panegyrist of poets whose 
writings in all probability he never had 
read. He took pleasure in commending 
in verse the works of men not worthy of 
his notice, and in lauding and patronizing 
juvenile mediocrity and poeticules of the 
gutter-snipe order. In his prefatory 
remarks to the reader in "Sejanus" 
there is the same display of excess 



172 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

of commendation. Ben Jonson writes, 
"Lastly I would inform you that this 
"book in all numbers is not the same 
"with that which was acted on the public 
"stage wherein a second pen had good 
"share, in place of which I have rather 
"chosen to put weaker and no doubt less 
"pleasing of my own than to defraud so 
' ' happy a genius of his right by my loath- 
"ed usurpations." 

According to Dry den, Ben Jonson 's 
compliments were left-handed. Neverthe- 
less, the words "so happy a genius" have 
directed the thoughts of commentators to 
Shakespeare. Mr. Nicholson, however, 
has shown that the person alluded to is 
not Shakespeare, but a very inferior poet, 
Samuel Sheppard, who more than forty 
years later claimed for himself the honor 
of having collaborated in "Sejanus" with 
Ben Jonson. Compliments bestowed on 
inferior men of the elder time are in 
later times the reprisal of Shakespearean 
buccaneers; while many of Jonson 's ver- 
sified panegyrics on cotemporary poets 



AND ROBERT GREENE 173 

were retrieved by his withering con- 
tempt for many of them, orally expressed, 
or contained in his prose works, Shakes- 
peare being included among these. Still, 
at the Apollo room of the Devil Tavern 
were numbered the most distinguished 
men of the day outside of literary cir- 
cles, as well as within, who sought his fel- 
lowship and would gladly have sealed 
themselves of the tribe of Ben. Claren- 
don tells us that " his conversations were 
"very good and with men of most note.' 1 

The following is, in part, from the 
notes recorded by William Drummond, 
Laird of Hawthornden. . 

"Conversations of Ben Jonson. His 
"censure of the English poets was this: 
"That Sidney did not keep a decorum in 
"making every one speak as well as him- 
"self. Spencer's stanzas pleased him not 
"nor his matter. 

"Samuel Daniel was a good honest 
"man, had no children, but no poet, and 
"was jealous of him; that Michael Dray- 
" ton's long verses pleased him not— 



174 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

' Drayton feared Mm and lie esteemed not 
'of him; that Donne's 'Anniversary' was 
'profane and full of blasphemies ..... 
'that Donne, for not keeping of accent 
'deserved hanging; that Shakespeare 
'wanted art; that Day, Dekker and Min- 
'shew were all rogues; that Abram Fran- 
'cis, in his English hexameters, was a 
' fool ; that next to himself only Fletcher 
4 and Chapman could make a masque. 

"He esteemeth John Donne the first 
'poet in the world in some things; that 
'Donne, himself, for not being under- 
' stood would perish. 

"Sir Henry Wotton's verses of a 
' 'Happy Life' he hath by heart, and a 
'piece of Chapman's translation of the 
'thirteen of the 'Iliads,' which he think- 
'eth well done. That Francis Beaumont 
'loved too much himself and his own 
'verse. 

' ' He had many quarrels with Marston ; 
'that Markham was not of the number of 
'the faithful, and but a base fellow; that 
'such were Day and Middleton; that 



AND ROBERT GREENE 175 

' Chapman and Fletcher were loved of 
' him ; that Spencer died for lack of bread 
'in King street; that the King said Sir 
'P. Sidney was no poet. Neither did he 
'see any verses in England to the Scul- 
'lers, meaning that John Taylor was the 
'best poet in England; that Shakespeare 
'in a play brought in a number of men 
'saying they had suffered shipwreck in 
'Bohemia where there is no sea near by 
'some 100 miles. 

"Sundry times he (Jonson) hath de- 
'voured his books, sold them all for neces- 
'sity; that he hath consumed a whole 
'night in lying looking at his great toe, 
'about which he hath seen Carthagenians 
'and the Romans fighting; that the half 
'of his comedies were not in print; he 
'said to Prince Charles, of Inigo Jones, 
'that when he wanted words to express 
'the greatest villain in the world, he 
'would call him an 'Inigo/ Jones having 
'accused him for naming him, behind his 
'back, a fool, he denied it; but, says he, I 
'said he w T as an arrant knave, and I 



176 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE 

" avouch it; of all his plays he never 
" gained 200 pounds; he dissuaded me 
"from poetry for that she had beggared 
"him when he might have been a rich 
"lawyer, physician, or merchant; that 
"piece of the 'Pucelle of the Court' was 
"stolen out of his pocket by a gentleman 
"who drank him drowsy." 

These occasional infractions of sobriety 
by Ben Jonson when he conversed with 
Drummond at Hawthornden in 1618-19 
became habitual with him long before 
James Howell's invitation to a Solem 
supper by B. J. 1636. 

Day, Middleton, Dekker and Sir 
Walter Raleigh could have instituted a 
civil suit against Ben Jonson for defama- 
tion of character, because of the defama- 
tory words in conversation with William 
Drummond of Hawthornden, had the 
notes recorded by Drummond been pub- 
lished in the lifetime of the defamed. 
However, they had come to regard him, 
doubtless, as a notorious slanderer who 
would as soon falsify as verify, and was 



AXD ROBERT GREEXE 177 

not to be believed in unsworn testimony 
about his fellowmen or as a credible wit- 
ness as to any matter— one whose testi- 
mony was none too good under every 
sanction possible to give it. This is the 
writer who gave genesis to the Stratford 
myth. The matter-of-fact to be accen- 
tuated is that the contemporaries of the 
writer of the immortal plays did not know 
positively who w^rote them; we do not 
know positively who wrote them ; and our 
latest posterity, when Holy Trinity's 
monuments, turrets, and towers shall have 
crumbled and commingled with the 
shrined dust of AYilliam Shakspere of 
Stratforcl-on-Avon, may not know posi- 
tively who wrote them. 

In conclusion, it has not been our de- 
sign to point out, or suggest, who, in fact, 
wrote the poems and plays, but rather to 
show that the man of Stratford was by 
education, temperament, character, repu- 
tation, opportunity and calling, wholly 
unequal to so transcendent a task, and 
that the authorship assumed in favor of 



178 WILLIAM SHAKS'PERE 

this man, rests upon no tangible proof, 
but to the contrary upon strained and far- 
fetched conjecture, merely. 



INDEX. 



Pages 

Alleyn Edward 17, 18, 19, 42, 107 

Addenbroke John 115, 116 

Aubury John 141 

Blank Verse 31 

Bame Richard 7 8 

Burbages 18, 42 

Beaumont Francis. .122, 123, 142, 148, 150, 157, 169, 174 

Burns Robert 48 

Burtcn Robert 53, 157 

Bruno 79 

Bodley Sir Thomas 9 4 

Betterton 103 

Bright John 164 

Brown Sir Thomas 156 

Brown Richard 16 

Bunyan John 44, 45 

Brown J. M. 54 

Camden William 160 

Chapman George 81, 93, 122, 136, 140, 141, 

142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 154, 155, 163, 174, 175 
Chettle Henry 35, 43, 49, 63, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 

75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91 

Collier J. P 25 

Cook Dr. James 101 

Coleridge S. T 47, 144, 145 

Cicero 50, 84 

Combe William 109, 110, 125 

Cromwell Oliver 3 

Dryden John 39, 148, 165, 172 

Drummond Sir William 39, 166, 167, 173, 176 

Dearborn 43 

Daniel Samuel 145, 173 

Davis Cushman K 41 

Dowland John 17 

Diggs Leonard 128 

Dance-Scene 100, 111, 124, 129 

Dyce A 114 

Davenant Sir William 135 

Donne • • 174 

Dekker 143, 162, 174 



ii INDEX 

Pages 

Drayton 150, 153, 174 

Elizabeth Queen 53, 157 

Emerson R. W . 114, 130 

Fletcher John 43, 122, 142, 148, 150, 152, 157 

Fleay 70 

Ford John 122 

Farmer Dr 110 

Fuller Thomas ! 159 

Garrick David Ill 

Grosart A 3 

Robert Greene 

4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28, 

29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 
46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 
62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 79, 
80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 121, 140, 150, 151 

Gifford William 165 

Groats Worth of Wit. .6, 9, 61, 62, 65, 68, 76, 85, 87, 89 

Galileo 79 

Hathaway Richard 102, 103 

Howell James 168, 176 

Hall Dr. John 100, 111, 124, 129 

Hathaway Agnes or Anne 103, 104, 106 

Herrick 45 

Henry VI 30 

Henslowe Diary 17, 19 

Henslowe Philip. ..17, 19, 32, 42, 89, 93, 117, 118, 152, 156 

Hallam Henry 114, 118, 130 

Heywood 24, 143 

Halliwell-Phillips 32, 156 

Harvey Gabriel 18, 40, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 62, 69 

Ingeleby Dr 37 

Jonson Ben 24, 39, 

59, 81, 90. 92, 93, 94, 122, 136, 137, 139, 140, 142, 
143 145, 148, 152, 153, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 
165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176 

James First 43, 147 

Jusserand J. J 60 

Jefferson Thomas 79 

Ke-np William 11, 14, 15, 16 17, 18, 19, 

20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 92 

Kyd 43, 151 

Keats John 146 

Kind Hearts Dreams 35, 63, 68, 76, 91 

Lucy Sir Thomas 107, 113, 114 

Lincoln Abraham 89 

Lodge Thomas 34, 72, 73, 140, 152 

Lee Sidney 133, 137, 151 



INDEX iii 

Pages 

London 15, 20, 21, 105 

Lee Miss Jane 150 

Lucrece 131, 138 

Lamb Charles , 146 

Lander Walter Savage 153 

Marlowe Christopher 6, 11, 30, 31. 36, 69, 70, 71, 

72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 144, 150, 151 

Milton John 49, 122, 146, 153 

Mulcaster Richard 101 

Miller Joaquin 5 

Malone 9 4 

Mannering Arthur 109, 110 

Middleton 174 

Massinger Phillip . . . 122 

Marston John 24, 136, 162, 174 

Meres Francis 138, 139, 140, 141, 155 

Nash Thomas. . . . 7, 11, 15, 18, 29, 30, 32, 35, 38, 45, 49, 
52, 62, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 140 

Napoleon 96 

Nicholson Dr 172 

Norwich 2 0, 22, 62 

Overbury Sir Thomas 43 

Peele George 

7, 11, 30, 35, 69, 70, 71, 72. 74, 75, 83, 86, 151 

Poe Edgar Allen 48 

Quiney Richard 108, 111, 112 

Rathway Richard ..24 

Rosebery Lord . . . • • 9 6 

Rowe N 103, 134, 135 

William Shakspere the Stratfordian 

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 28 

29, 31, 32, 33, 34. 35. 36. 37, 41, 42, 45, 70, 71, 82, 
86, 87, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 
107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117. 
118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 
130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 151, 152, 155, 156, 
158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 166, 170, 171, 177 

Shakespeare the Author Poet 2, 31, 33, 37, 

39, 43, 55. 60, 70, 72, 90, 124, 130, 131. 132, 138, 140, 
142, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 
158, 159, 164, 165, 166, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175 

Shakspere John 96, 97, 98, 101 

Shakspere Susana ioo, 111 

Shakspere Judith 100, 112 

Shakspere Hamnet 108 

Shake-scene 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 

Shake-rags 16. 23 

Spencer Edmond 144, 156, 157, 173 



iv INDEX 

Pages 

Stratford-on-Avon . 

1, 12, 41, 90, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108 

Sidney Sir Phillip 18, 144, 157 

Stevens George 2, 114, 130 

S'winburn A 47, 96, 146, 151 

Scott Sir Walter 59, 157 

Strojenko Prof • • 66 

Stratford Bust 128, 131 

Spedding James 150 

Saunders 132 

Southampton Earl of... 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 149 

Tarlton Richard 15, 114, 130 

Tyrwhitt Thomas • 9 

"The Nine Days Wonder" 16, 21 

Twain Mark 130 

Tho yspson James 49 

Taft William H. : 79 

Taylor John 175 

Thorndike A. H 152 

Tolstoy Leo 90 

Upstart Crow 5, 9, 28, 82 

Venus and Adonis 32, 131, 138, 149 

Voltair 157 

Washington George 3 

Wilson Robert, Senior 25, 26, 27 

White Richard Grant 116 

Wallace Professor 119 

Waller Edmund 145 

Wately Anna 102 



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